Twin Mandible Fracture
April 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I was riding powder paradise at Snowbird mountain resort with my friend and he ran into me. I broke my jaw on both sides and had it wired shut for two months. During that time I drank my meals through a straw…usually chili blended up with those little goldfish crackers and some johnnys seasoning. Funny part to the story is that I was only uninsured for about a week while swithching my insurance plan from my old one to a new one. So just my tough luck I guess that I got my jaw broken during that week. What are the chances! Now I’m working two jobs, selling my car that I just bought two months ago, and had to drop out of school so I can pay the bills. Thats my story.
Chris Hair
Wedged 2 vertabrae, shattered one, collapsed lung, and fractured sacrum.
April 18, 2008 | 1 Comment
Hey I’m jake i heard about injuredriders.org from my buddy, Tye. We were hiiting up jackson pass in wyoming around the begining of december 07, so it was a little early season conditions. We were sessioning a kicker off a little drop and we had a little friendly comp going on. My buddy tye landed some sick backflips, so i thought i would hit it up. As soon as i started my rotation i knew i had overshot my landing. I wasn’t too worried, i figured i would land on my butt and pop right back up. WRONG! since it was still early season, somehow i found a rock, stump, or something that made me stop a lot faster than expected. I slid a ways down the hill and laid there, trying to catch my breath. After about 10 minutes of not being able to catch my breath, i tried to stand up. I couldn’t. Tye went for help, and while he was gone i tried to walk up the hill. I made it about 30 feet up the hill in the time he was gone. I couldn’t breathe or walk anymore, about then, tye popped over the ridge and told me he had called an ambulance. My first reaction was telling tye he was dumb because i didn’t have insurance, and couldn’t afford an ambulance.
I laid down in the snow and waited. 3 and 1/2 hours later, after search and rescue “saved me”(when the emt’s got there, my oxygen saturation was down to 62%, normal is 90% and above), i was in St. Johns Hospital in Jackson Hole, talking with a surgeon. He told me i had shattered my T-12 vertabrae and was going to need emergency surgery. The surgery would cost 150-200 thousand dollars. Thats a lot of money for a 21 year old guy with no insurance. I ended up having 6 vertabrae fused together with a mix of titanium rods and screws, some cadaver bone, and some of my own bone from my hip.
The surgery went fine, and i am recovering slowly. My lung is fine, and since they had to take a bone graft off my hip, all the nerves were severed near my sacrum, so i can’t even feel it. I am expected to make a full recovery. The only problem i have now is coming up with enough money to pay my bills so that sucks, but at least i only have to wear a back brace for 4 months instead of a wheel chair forever. I hopefully will be riding by this time next year. I thank everybody for all the support. I can’t wait to ride again!
popped spleen
April 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment
A few years ago during the US Open I was just having some fun at the end of the day messing around on the railjam setup. I was hitting the single downbar and attempted a frontside lipslide. It was late and I was lazy - my tail didn’t get over the rail. Instead, it knocked into the side of the rail and forced me into a horizontal, laid out position above the rail. Gravity did its work, pulling me down belly first. I folded over the rail and ended up doing a foward roll down the last few stairs. No big deal, I got my breath back, rubbed my sore noggin and hiked back up to claim my redemption. I got it, so I felt better but not for too long. My friend had a room in the Inn right at the mountain so a few of us went to hang out for a little bit. After ten or fifteen minutes I started to feel a steadily increasing stomachache. After a few more minutes I remember laying down on the floor sprawled out because it made me feel a bit better. I grew up around there and my friends and I were staying at my parent’s house. We left the hotel because I felt awful and just wanted to go home. Getting to the car wasn’t too bad and once I was sitting in the driver’s seat I felt better. The pain was off and on during the 20 minute drive home but I didn’t think much of it. I get home and open the door of the car to get out. Standing up lasts a fraction of a second, and before I know it I’m on the driveway with the worst pain ever in my gut and my left shoulder. My friends do all they can to get me into the house, and as soon as I’m in the door my mom is already there, sensing something is quite wrong using her motherly senses. Ok, back out to the car - to the health center down the street. We’re there five minutes later and getting out of the car this time is even harder than the last time. I’m laid down on the bed an my belly is poked and prodded. It hurt a lot and I was scared because I had absolutely no idea what was up. They told me that I had most likely ruptured my spleen and that I would need an ambulance for an hour ride to the nearest hospital. They couldn’t give me any drugs during the ride which sucked. Every bump felt like my stomach was ripping in half. They said that the docs in the hospital who would examine me needed me to feel every poke and prod to the max to better determine what was going on. Once the doctors in the hospital concluded that my spleen was indeed ruptured I was administered morphine which worked wonders. In my drugged up haze, the doctor told me that my degree of ruptured-ness was a 2 out of 6, 6 being the worst. That was semi-comforting but knowing that I was bleeding internally was not nice. Here’s how it works - just like other tissue, your spleen will do its best to stop bleeding. If its too bad and can’t stop itself from leaking then the only choice is to have it out. In my case, they told me that it would stop bleeding by itself and I didn’t need to have it removed. I was quite happy to not have to go under the knife. I spent almost 3 days under intensive care at the hospital until I was able to leave. Everything still hurt and the car ride was brutal. Once again, every crack in the road made me feel like my abdomen was being ripped out. Once at home, I was instructed to move only when necessary. Your spleen is attached to all of those muscles in your abdomen and if you move around alot then it’s like ripping open the cut all over again. Whenever I walked to the bathroom or wherever else I was going I looked like a hunchback. Standing up straight hurt so I just stayed hunched over all the time. The recovery time for a removed spleen is much quicker than that of a damaged but not removed spleen. It was march, so riding the rest of that year was out of the question. I was a little bummed and almost wished I had had it taken out so that I could get back on the snow sooner, but now I’m glad that I still have all my organs - even if it did mean a longer recovery time. Your spleen is not a necessary organ but it is part of the lymphatic system which is part of the immune system. - It’s important. If you ever hit your stomach real hard or have any kind of hard impact to your midsection be aware that pain in your left shoulder means you are bleeding inside. It’s weird - here’s how it works: You bleed - the blood puts pressure on your diaphram (the breathing muscle). Somehow your body translates this as pain in your shoulder. It’s a scary thing - I was lucky and I probably would have been okay if I never went to the hospital but if it’s worse then you’ll bleed to death without even seeing any blood.
wanna get back in business!
March 24, 2007 | 1 Comment
hi, i just discovered snowboard revolution thanks to the interview of my friend Jean-jacques Roux and that how i get to know about “injured riders foundation”.
What can i say?
i already told my story a thousand times so i sum it up
2 broken vertebras and a piece of titanium, consequently to an overshoot during the Oneill pro slopestyle 2005 in Avoriaz France
i m getting better and i’ m supposed to ride again “seriously” for next summer
that’s the reason why i decided to try out the “injured riders foundation”!
actually i have been off for almost 2 seasons but i really want to come back
i went back to the university(currently in a master degree), and i have internship to do for next winter, from january to august, and i decided i’d do that in British Columbia, Canada so that i could restart my snowboard stuff and finish my studies in the same time.
Only one compagny kept my under contract while injured (Julbo sunglasses) and i m looking for further support to keep doing what i do best:snowboard.
I dont know if the foundation aims at that, but i try…..that is something just unbeleivable in my country , that i couldn t help but checking it out, so here it is , i registered in the snowboard revolution users and i leave some links so that you can check my stuffs out and that hopefully i find out some new and serious partnerships to keep shredding!!!!!
Well big up to the foundation and to snowboard revolution
and see you later. Peace
Gabriel Bessy “Gaby”
