I was in the daily newspaper the next day. There were sign boards up on all the posts alongside the roads about the accident.
I do still feel that aviation is a safe sport and career. I am very comfortable with the principles of flight and what keeps us in the air. This cant be tricked. The one aspect though is that your life is relying on a mechanical devise and the whole aircraft is as strong and as reliable as the weakest link. My accident was in the statistics of one hundred and fifty six million flights to one. It was just my unlucky draw. Since my accident I have been used in a few presentations on ways to improve the search and rescue system to get medical helicopters out to the scenes faster. I have written articles to magazines explaining my story and giving out positive advice to other fellow pilots.
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Recovery
Hospital:
ICU. Not remembering much of that. Apparently I was talking a lot of rubbish from the drugs I was on.
Called people names. One lady I called a cigar. One thing I really don’t like doing is letting people down. In my mind I new the next day I had a charter flight to do and wouldn’t stop talking about it until somebody called them to let them know that I couldn’t do the flight for them. I wanted to give them as much notice to find another pilot to do the flight instead of me. Not knowing that like two weeks had gone by already and the flight was taken care of long time ago nevertheless even in the state I was in I had to get someone to make a call as not to let them down.
It was like a strange feeling looking at all my external fixators on my body and bandages. I kept thinking to myself, ok I have learnt my lesson, can we reset now and go back to my normal life. It took a while for this to settle in and realize I was in for a long ride recovering from this one.
The last times I was in a hospital bed was when I was in Nigeria where I had suffered from, Salmonella, typhoid. And malaria Malaria. That was also very scary but now was in something very different.
It is very hard for me to explain the pain I went through with all the broken bones I had. You have all experienced pain sometime in your life so you can imagine what I was going through. I learnt to deal with pain quite a lot but some was to the extreme. I had Ghost pains due to the spinal nerve damage I had. I would get surging pains like my foot was being cut off with a steak knife. This really boggled my mind as I would be lying there and one of these surges came about. I would tighten every muscle in my body with my back arched back and clenching, Gritting my teeth. After a few seconds I would brave the scrutinizing pain and look towards where my foot was being sawn off and to my shock and couldn’t believe my eyes my foot was fine. This really played tricks with me. I would feel a knife stabbed through my foot and then twisted tearing up my flesh while looking at a normal foot. I got well introduced to Morphine; this drug was my savior, waiting desperately for my next injections. I ended up having so much of this that my body started to get immune to it and wasn’t taking away the pain anymore. They decided to take me off morphine and put me on a new medication. The New medication took 3 days to start taking effect. My psychiatrist told me that there is no point in me being around for the next three days so he gave me medication that put me to sleep. Woke up thinking it was the next day not realizing 3 days had gone by. Found a note pad next to my bed where visitors had written notes that they had come to see me and I was asleep. Some tried to wake me with no luck. My sister came out from Australia for three weeks to show her support. It was nice to have her there and the support she gave.
The nurses were great and were at my attention for everything. They had to bed bath me in the early mornings as I was always flat on my back.
In the beginning I couldn’t eat anything and was relying on a drip. Later was being spoon fed with mushy food as I couldn’t chew due to my jaw being dislodged out to the side. I could only taste and then swallow.
I was starting to loose movement and feeling in my left foot. I couldn’t move my toes at all. Next thing I’m wheeled off in my bed to have an MRI scan. The nurses placed a magnet onto me and moved it around my whole body to see if any of the many metal plates that were inside of me were magnetic as I wouldn’t be able to go into the MRI machine if the magnet stuck to me.
The MRI scanning machine is very Claustrophobic. Nurses lifted me onto a tray and slid me into a small tunnel where there was hardly enough space to breath. Clunking sounds that the machine made while doing its scan. Were nerve-racking.
Later the news that I had a blood clot in my lower back behind my spine. A new operation had to be done. One of the first challenges the doctors had was they had to lay me down on my stomach to operate on my back. With all the fixations I had attached to my body this was a task on its own for them. When I woke up back in my bed I noticed that I had no feeling in my backside and lower legs. My toes still not moving and was in a bit of fright. The doctor came to me and said that he had to go through my spine to get to the blood clot and that the cause of the blood clot was made from the splintered bone from my damaged spine had pierced my nerves causing the damage. With time I started to regain small movement in my toes.
For weeks after that operation I didn’t move an inch. I was so scared that my back was brittle and lay there stiff.
Setting goals and sticking to them. I knew I had to have full range of moving my arms to pass my flying medical. Well actually I had to be able to extend my arms and bring them in to touch my nose with my finger. Every day I would have to push my arm further and further to reach this goal
I had to set many goals in my recovery and stick to them. I became very stubborn and was going to keep working at it to reach my goals. I had to get myself into the front seat of the cockpit
A friend of mine brought a wing of a large scale model aircraft I had and put it above my bed for me to look at and dream about. I dreamt about what it would be like to be out in the open field and flying this big scale aircraft, Breathing the fresh air and feeling the surroundings. This kept my mind sane and focused on my recovery. It gave me something to look forward to and get excited about.
In hospital laying on my back. My Doctor would come in and I’d be screaming about my pain. He asked me where the pain was coming from, when I told him it was in my foot he shook his head. The problem wasn’t in my foot but was in the damaged nerves in my back. It took me a while to understand this and believe him.
I had physiotherapists come in and help me start moving my joints and getting me in a wheel chair. It was good to be upright but felt so faint as my body wasn’t used to keeping the blood up to my head. It was a sad feeling though as I was taken to the window so I could see outside at the fast track of life. I was sitting in a wheel chair and wasn’t sure how long it would be, this is the first time I felt sorry for myself as it was all sinking in..
Letting me out of hospital was a relief and excitement to go home. I had had enough and was getting bored of counting the flowers on the curtains for seven weeks on my back. I had to leave my lovely little house and go and live with my parents. It was very challenging to get me into a car and home. I remember entering into the lift in the wheel chair was the first time I had seen a mirror. I was shocked. I looked terrible. I was white, as all the blood had run to my toes. I looked really ugly. My face was scared with red lines. My hair was shaved in places and still staple marks from the torn skin. I was really horrified.
At home: Being at home was great. My parents had brought my bed and placed it in the lounge so that I could be in the attention of what was happening on a daily basis. If I was in a bedroom I wouldn’t have seen anything. I lay in that bed for a few weeks having the difficulties of bathing and living in bed. Support I had from family and friends: People sent me post cards with get well wishes which were put up on the wall in the lounge for me to see everyday. I had get well cards from people I didn’t even know.
The pain I went through at home was horrific. I used to look at the clock all day checking how much longer I had to wait to take the next pain killers. It was very difficult to get to sleep at night even with all the drugs I was on and had to take drugs throughout the night for my pain.
Drugs became a specialty. We had plastic containers full of different boxes of medication. It took far too much time taking them one by one that I learnt to take them by the shooter glass full.
I had a Catheter still inside my bladder with a bag that had to be emptied regularly. I couldn’t sit up even to eat initially. I had to just lie on my side to eat. I had to work at sitting up for short periods to start to eat upright. I was so scared to sit up as I was worried about my spine from what they did when operating on it. My jaw with time started to move back into place and allowed me to chew easily for short times. The new eating challenges I had was quite frustrating. My left wrist still had an external fixation on holding my wrist together hardly allowing me to move my fingers to hold a fork. My right Elbow still didn’t allow my hand to reach my mouth. This drove me to work harder on my elbow forcing it to flex further.
Every morning before my bed bath, my father would lift me up and move me across onto a commode to go to the toilet. Daily taking laxatives to allow me to go as I had no control of this
Nappies became a new part of my life. It was really tough to get through but had to focus on being positive
The feeling of Helplessness was horrible, The Frustrations and uncertainty about my recovery was very depressing and very sad. I had so much anger and frustration within.
When you feel you have loads of friends in your life it takes something like this to really tell them apart. People you work with and deal with in your every day life that you feel quite close to because you are always in their circle. Let me tell you, when you are out of the rat race of life and they don’t see you anymore. You are as good as forgotten about. It takes your real true friends to see you through something like this. The saying “out of sight out of mind” is very true. You have heard before that you can count your true friends on one hand.
Spending so much time on my back in bed I developed bed sores over my body. My feet had blisters flaming up on them due to the sliding of them over the sheets. I had to twist up Towels into rings and bandage them to my ankles to keep them off the sheets. Blisters oozing fluid was very stingy,
My parents were the best I could ever ask for. They did everything for me. They were at my call 24/7. The smallest of tasks they had to do. I don’t know how I would ever be able to thank them enough. I suppose the best thank you I could give them though is to show them that I am going to get back into my life and make a success again.
When I was feeling a bit braver, once a day. Had to get into the wheelchair with much help and be pushed to the window to see the view. At first 5 to 10 min was all I could handle being upright in the chair. The bed was a big comfort zone for me. Due to the operation I had on my back I was scared to sit up initially as I felt my Back was very week and wasn’t sure how it would hold my weight. When I positioned in an arm chair for the first few times, I would rest on my elbows against the arm rests of the chair to support my weight to reduce the strain on my spine.
When I could maintain at least 10 min I would be taken outside in the late afternoon when the sun was going down to sit in the nice cool air and look at the view across the valley. It became a daily event to go out into the front garden by the garden chair and table. My mom would bring out tea and little cup cakes. That was the highlight of my day. It was a great achievement when I made my first few meters along the paved pathway by pushing myself along by moving the tops of the wheels forward on the wheelchair with my own arms. I could only initially move a few centimeters at a time as my arms were so weak.
The entrance to our garden was built up with a new gate entrance so that I could be wheeled into the house from the cul-de-sac at the top of the driveway. Had a door as a ramp from the front door down the two steps into the lounge where the bed was kept. It was great to have the bed in the lounge so that I could see what was going on and kept in with the daily activities. It made it easy for friends to visit.
After a few weeks at home I went to a rehabilitation center at the entabeni hospital as I was now addicted to morphine. No just kidding. I went there to start regaining strength in my body. I spent a lot of time sitting up in a wheel chair and doing the smallest of exercise to get some strength back. I was there for three weeks working hard to make progress. I was noticing small differences daily in my regaining strength. There I had my first shower. Yes three months after the accident I was up for my first shower. I had to be wheeled under the showering water in a water chair. It was so strange to feel the water sprinkle onto me and run all over my body before running off onto the floor. After being dried off and put back into my bed, it did feel good to be clean. Leaving the rehab center was when the catheter was taken out and I was in the shock of not being able to go to the toilet on my own, I was absolutely horrified. This was too much for me to handle. What made it worse was that I had to be shown how to intermittently self catheterize myself every three hours. The thought of having to do this for the rest of my life. This was the first time I cried and I sobbed hard about it. Not having control over my bowel and bladder is terrible. I think I would rather be stuck in a wheelchair then have this problem.
Some of my difficulties were in taking a shower, I had to wrap up my external fixators in plastic bags and tape to prevent them from getting wet, and it was quite a task getting me up out of the wheel chair and onto the plastic chair in the shower. My dad having to stand next to me and wash me as I couldn’t do it myself.
The cry from deep inside from the anger that kept building up of how cruel the dragonfly people were to allow me to suffer and deal with the loss of control of bowel and bladder and the rest of the restrictions I now had . I wanted somebody to blame but most of all just couldn’t understand how I had put my life on line for the sake of helping others and not getting any form of support from them.
I suffered from bed sores. MY skin on my ankles and the back of my legs. From the friction of sliding around on the bed sheets caused blisters to form on my skin and couldn’t heel as there wasn’t a hell of a lot I could do to take the pleasure off them. I tied T towels in a shape of a ring and bandaged them to my heels to restrict the contact as much as possible. When my Jaw came closer into alignment I Started to eat mushy food that was spoon fed to me. When I could start eating more solids I had to have my food cut up into small pieces as my right arm was in a frame and didn’t have much movement in my elbow and my left wrist held at an angle with the external fixator I had it very hard to get the food onto a fork and into my mouth. In the early part I couldn’t sit up to eat as the blood wouldn’t stay up and used to drain to my feet. Not having the strength to hold the blood up to my head. Slowly over time I would sit up for a few more seconds at a time till I could at least sit up for a minute and try eat a bit sitting up. My face used to go white and my feet swelled up and turned purple from the blood falling straight to my feet. Food became a big comfort factor for me and was always after something nice thus resulting me putting on a lot of weight which I spent months later working it off.
People used to say well you are so lucky to be alive, at least you are still here. I just used to think to myself with all the depression I was going through. Really, I don’t feel so grateful for being here as I didn’t have any interest in life or being alive. I was so down and full of hatred I didn’t even want my life. I spent many months in this state. It’s a sad thing to say but with all the pain I have been through and mental frustrations, if I had known all I would have had to go through to recover I would have chosen to die in that wreckage. In the long run now I am grateful I have been strong and fought and pulled through everything I have had to deal with. It’s been a very good learning curve to better my life.
At a bit of a later stage I had to have an operation on my hand as I had cut the tendents to my fingers at my wrist. This preventing my hands from being able to close on my left hand. The muscles in the fore arms were no longer connected to my fingers to pull them down. By opening up my wrist and using a spare tendent to tie up all the loose ends. Was going to fix this. This I feel was a fantastic job. I had my hand in a cast for a few weeks again. My fingers could not be moved they had frozen in one position. I had great difficulty in showering at home. Had to wrap up my hand and also my leg that still had fixators on in plastic packets and tape so that they wouldn’t get wet. My Dad would come home from work every morning at 8am to help me shower. It was a task to lift me into the shower and onto a plastic chair. I couldn’t wash myself. My father had to stand in the shower next to me and clean me up. It used to take me about two hours to get ready in the mornings as I was also so slowed up from the drugs I was on, everything took time. Just to dry off was something I had to do lying down on a bed and needing further assistance to putting on clothes.
When the cast came off my hand. It was very stiff. My wrist had become very stiff by the break and my fingers couldn’t move at all. I had to go back to the Re had center and see an Occupational therapist who worked on my hand and fingers daily to get them to move again. I had to stretch my fingers with force to stretch the tendents as I didn’t have much travel. Some of the tendents were very stuck and we spent many days working at them. There was a thought of having another operation to try and free them up. In time most of it gave in. Till this day and I think it will always be is that the tentent to my thumb and first finger are still stuck together. I don’t notice it in everyday use but those two fingers move together and can’t move individually. I can’t hitch hike because I can’t extend my thumb without straightening my index finger.
It was frustrating having to get up every morning at about 2am, Climb out of bed and into the wheelchair that was by my bedside. Go through to the bathroom half asleep to self catheterize. Clean up whatever bowel movement mess I had had.
Spending so much time in my wheelchair on a broken coccyx wasn’t going so easy. I got to a stage that I couldn’t sit as the pain in my coccyx area was to sore. I bought a sponge donut that I had to sit on to help relieve the pressure while sitting. I was not seen without it for a while.
Piles was something I developed which was very ugly and a horrible thought to know I had. Luckily after 2 years they went away. A small relief