As in this crash, no one was hurt but me in my big crash.
On May 9, 2007, at about 5 p.m., I started down Turkey Hill
on River Road in Lancaster County with eleven other riders. I hit 51 mph near the middle of the ¾-mile
hill, then I hit another rider. It was more than a half-hour later that I
reached the bottom of the hill, being carried on a stretcher heading for a
MEDEVAC helicopter.
In seconds, my chances of re-enlisting in the Army at 54
years old went from good to gruesome.
Although I can remember nothing from five minutes before the accident
until almost five months after, I could read a medical report when I was
discharged form the hospital more than a week later. I had broken нине bones, the worst was a
smashed C7 vertebra that the neurosurgeon on call scraped out and replaced with
a cadaver bone and a titanium plate.
In addition to the smashed C7, I cracked C2, broke four
ribs, my right collarbone and shoulder blade and my nose. The worst obvious injury was my forehead peeled
up at my eyebrows. I got plastic surgery
the same day. Neck surgery the next day.
I was in a neck and chest brace until August 2, but I started
walking as soon as I got out of the hospital and started running in June. I was convinced I could still get back in the
Army as long as that waiver took three months.
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I flew in the chase bird on a few MEDEVAC missions in Iraq. Ten years ago, I was the on the back board and the cause of the MEDEVAC mission.
