Nurse "I told ya so"...

Yep, I think we all told him so, but what can ya do? I got a message on my cell phone at school Friday from Woodie, Rich's friend, that Rich had been in a motorcycle accident and the ambulance was in route to UVA hospital. I immediately sent my kids across the hall, grabbed my keys and jumped in the car. I met Woodie and Michelle at the ER, but they had already taken Rich in for x-rays. We knew from Bob, a family friend who works at UVA, that the paramedics coded Rich "yellow" which is serious, possible cervical damage. We waited for almost an hour before seeing him. The biggest relief came when he returned without the neck brace. Everything else checked out okay, other than his right ankle which had to be read again by the attending radiologist. He ended up having to have a CT scan on the ankle, but thankfully it checked out okay. The biggest shock for me was seeing the shocks missing from his shoes, the clothes that they literally cut off of him, the helmet with scars on all sides, the gloves that looked like swiss cheese, and the backpack that saved the skin on his back. We spent 7 hours in the ER getting the road rash that covers both arms and knees cleaned up, waiting on tests, x-rays, and CT scans. Finally, Rich was released a little after 10 pm. It was quite an obstacle to get him into the car for the ride home considering he could barely stand up straight or hold himself up.

Since then Rich has remained in the recliner other than to take a shower and wash out the wounds, which I had to enforce. As Matt, said yesterday he did not want to be around when it was shower time. Boy, was he right! I got the call for more pills while he was still in the shower cussing and screaming. It takes Rich about 5 minutes to get in and out of the recliner because his back and butt are so bruised and swollen. I've never seen anything like it! In his words, "it feels like he has baby in his butt cheeks". haha. I've got the pictures, but he'd kill me if I posted them:)

The short version of the actual accident is that Rich and Woodie had just turned in applications at Pro Link and were headed back to Woodie's house when Rich saw a car out of the corner of his eye that looked like it was coming into his lane. He over-corrected and ended up sliding down 29 North in front of the post office at 50 mph. Woodie looked back and saw the bike in the middle of the road. Rich had dropped the bike and was rolling down 29. This is evident by all of his gear! Thank goodness the traffic behind him was able to stop and he did not get hit by a car.

We are extremely grateful that even though Rich is in a tremendous amount of pain, he is going to be alright. He keeps apologizing to me for having to take care of him today, but my only thought is that I could have very well been taking care of funeral arrangements today. I am more than happy to clean wounds, give meds, and run back and forth to the kitchen as long as he is here.

I think that he will be up and moving around a little better by next week. We are still waiting on the final report on the bike, but Rich is pretty sure that it is totaled. I'll post some pictures once we are able to take a look at it. I don't think Rich will be up for a car ride this weekend though.