My last ride
“For no more I'll go waltzing Matilda
Around the green bushes so far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me”
(the Pouges, “And the band played Waltzing Matilda” Rum Sodomy & the Lash c1972)
As the last big callous peels off my clutch hand, I have time to reflect on my 35 plus years of motorcycle riding, and the last ride that ended it.
See, I have been infatuated with motorcycles all my life, and I love them all. In fact, in the big scope of things I consider myself a motorcyclist first, closely followed by a human being.
But that all changed one afternoon in late December 2006, when a road rage driver in an SUV rear-ended me on a street close to home. And when I woke up on the ground a few minutes later, with the paramedics cutting my clothes off, I couldn’t feel my legs. Not good. Thankfully I lapsed into unconsciousness.
When I came to at the County USC trauma center a few hours later, the gravity of what had happened to me started to sink in. Even though I had been wearing all the proper riding gear, the impact with the SUV had broken every rib, shattered my left scapula, and caused a burst fracture of my twelfth lumbar vertebrae, severing my spinal cord. I was intubated with a breathing tube as both lungs had collapsed, with two chest tubes sticking out of my sides. I came very close to dying. The trauma surgeon said that if I had gone to any other hospital in Los Angeles, I would be dead. I believed him, and silently wondered if that wouldn’t have been better.
What followed next was a series of nightmarish scenes from being isolated inside a structure that resembled Frankenstein’s castle. After surgery to stabilize my spine, I was transferred to a dingy gray-green room with no windows, where several other patients in various stages of dementia resided. There is a saying about County USC: You want to go there for the trauma services, but you don’t want to recover there. How true. I expected to see a bust of Joseph Stalin in my room, as the place resembled something from the former Soviet Union, a hospital in Minsk circa 1938.
After about two weeks of recovery at County USC, I was transferred to Kaiser’s Sunset Blvd. facility. It was like going from the midnight mission to the Waldorf. The staff at Kaiser’s spinal unit took excellent care of me for a month or so, but soon I had overextended my stay, and the decision of what to do with me next rested on the discharge nurse.
After an examination by the rehab doctor, they concluded my shoulder was still too messed up to go to spinal rehab. So they sent me to a convalescent hospital where I spent another two months. It was a horrible place that reeked of urine and bad vibes. By this time my shoulder was so badly out of line, that a decision was made by Kaiser for surgery. This set my recovery back another 60 days, before I could go to rehab.
So after the shoulder surgery Kaiser sent me back to the convalescent hospital, but this time with a twist; they wouldn’t be paying for it, and they ordered me out of the orthopedic unit within 6 hours. My wife and I were devastated. She quickly made arrangements with the nursing home that I had been staying in, and after paying them $5,100.00, I was sent back to hell.
After two weeks there, with my physical and mental condition deteriorating, my wife decided to take me home. A hospital bed was ordered, and I was sent home in a wheelchair wearing a back brace. It was bittersweet, being home, close to everything I loved, but unable to do anything. I didn’t want to look in the garage, and the seven motorcycles in there. I was bedridden for most of the day, a foley catheter and a bedpan my main companions. The days went by like slow death watching daytime tv, and after about a month it was time to go to rehab.
A month stay at Northridge Community Hospital’s spinal cord rehab center taught me some skills that I needed, to live with paralysis, but it didn’t prepare me for the constant nerve pain, back-to-back infections and the loss of identity one goes through when you lose the lower half of your body. It’s still there, but doesn’t work. I came back home in a chair and went back to work as soon as I could, to get my mind working again.
So where does that leave me now? After having my whole life revolve around two wheels, I have to wonder, what’s next. All my bikes are gone; Sad to see ‘em go, but they are useless to me now, kind of like an F18 fighter jet. Neat to look at, but operating them are out of the question.
So that’s about it, another casualty in the war for the streets. It’s amazing how your life can change in a split second, especially when it’s completely out of your hands. One minute you’re whole, enjoying life and the new XB9SX between your legs, and the next you are fighting for your life, or what’s left of it.
So be careful out there, and remember what can happen. It can all change in an instant.
__________________
Around the green bushes so far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me”
(the Pouges, “And the band played Waltzing Matilda” Rum Sodomy & the Lash c1972)
As the last big callous peels off my clutch hand, I have time to reflect on my 35 plus years of motorcycle riding, and the last ride that ended it.
See, I have been infatuated with motorcycles all my life, and I love them all. In fact, in the big scope of things I consider myself a motorcyclist first, closely followed by a human being.
But that all changed one afternoon in late December 2006, when a road rage driver in an SUV rear-ended me on a street close to home. And when I woke up on the ground a few minutes later, with the paramedics cutting my clothes off, I couldn’t feel my legs. Not good. Thankfully I lapsed into unconsciousness.
When I came to at the County USC trauma center a few hours later, the gravity of what had happened to me started to sink in. Even though I had been wearing all the proper riding gear, the impact with the SUV had broken every rib, shattered my left scapula, and caused a burst fracture of my twelfth lumbar vertebrae, severing my spinal cord. I was intubated with a breathing tube as both lungs had collapsed, with two chest tubes sticking out of my sides. I came very close to dying. The trauma surgeon said that if I had gone to any other hospital in Los Angeles, I would be dead. I believed him, and silently wondered if that wouldn’t have been better.
What followed next was a series of nightmarish scenes from being isolated inside a structure that resembled Frankenstein’s castle. After surgery to stabilize my spine, I was transferred to a dingy gray-green room with no windows, where several other patients in various stages of dementia resided. There is a saying about County USC: You want to go there for the trauma services, but you don’t want to recover there. How true. I expected to see a bust of Joseph Stalin in my room, as the place resembled something from the former Soviet Union, a hospital in Minsk circa 1938.
After about two weeks of recovery at County USC, I was transferred to Kaiser’s Sunset Blvd. facility. It was like going from the midnight mission to the Waldorf. The staff at Kaiser’s spinal unit took excellent care of me for a month or so, but soon I had overextended my stay, and the decision of what to do with me next rested on the discharge nurse.
After an examination by the rehab doctor, they concluded my shoulder was still too messed up to go to spinal rehab. So they sent me to a convalescent hospital where I spent another two months. It was a horrible place that reeked of urine and bad vibes. By this time my shoulder was so badly out of line, that a decision was made by Kaiser for surgery. This set my recovery back another 60 days, before I could go to rehab.
So after the shoulder surgery Kaiser sent me back to the convalescent hospital, but this time with a twist; they wouldn’t be paying for it, and they ordered me out of the orthopedic unit within 6 hours. My wife and I were devastated. She quickly made arrangements with the nursing home that I had been staying in, and after paying them $5,100.00, I was sent back to hell.
After two weeks there, with my physical and mental condition deteriorating, my wife decided to take me home. A hospital bed was ordered, and I was sent home in a wheelchair wearing a back brace. It was bittersweet, being home, close to everything I loved, but unable to do anything. I didn’t want to look in the garage, and the seven motorcycles in there. I was bedridden for most of the day, a foley catheter and a bedpan my main companions. The days went by like slow death watching daytime tv, and after about a month it was time to go to rehab.
A month stay at Northridge Community Hospital’s spinal cord rehab center taught me some skills that I needed, to live with paralysis, but it didn’t prepare me for the constant nerve pain, back-to-back infections and the loss of identity one goes through when you lose the lower half of your body. It’s still there, but doesn’t work. I came back home in a chair and went back to work as soon as I could, to get my mind working again.
So where does that leave me now? After having my whole life revolve around two wheels, I have to wonder, what’s next. All my bikes are gone; Sad to see ‘em go, but they are useless to me now, kind of like an F18 fighter jet. Neat to look at, but operating them are out of the question.
So that’s about it, another casualty in the war for the streets. It’s amazing how your life can change in a split second, especially when it’s completely out of your hands. One minute you’re whole, enjoying life and the new XB9SX between your legs, and the next you are fighting for your life, or what’s left of it.
So be careful out there, and remember what can happen. It can all change in an instant.
__________________
Comment
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Comment by Andrew Kass on October 15, 2009 at 2:45pm - Sounds great. We will be walking around, the best way to meet up is either through my email or cell phone. My email is andrew@andrewkass.net and my cell is 877-292-5388 (cycle-88). Lets try to meet up around 12:00pm. Look forward to meeting. - Andrew
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Comment by Matt Cuddy on October 15, 2009 at 11:02am -
Thanks Andrew, I've made every love ride for the last 15 years, sad to see it move from my old home town of Glendale, but that's the way it goes. Shoot me an email, let me know where you're going to be at, we'll hook up.
cuddy@sbcglobel.net.
Later,
MC
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Comment by Andrew Kass on October 15, 2009 at 10:34am
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Thank you for sharing your very private story. I can only imagine the courage you must have and continue to have to go through this experience. I am sure it will be a constant reminder for everyone of how aware we must be of bikes on the road. I hope you will remain an active voice on this site, as it seems you still have a great passion and knowledge of motorcycles. I will be in Ponoma for the Dream Ride, if you are in the area, I would love to do a Video interview of you for this site?
Andrew Kass - Co-Founder of www.Ride-Again.com.
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