Story #7 Below posted with
permission from West Newsmagazine publish date was March 12, 2008.
Physician
battles back from bicycle accident
By
Laura Saggar
“My
accident was a freakish thing. I was descending down a hill, there
was a blind curve. I’ve gone down that hill hundreds or thousands of
times. I made sure I was way over on my side of the road. But when I
went around the curve there was a truck coming way over on my side.
The only thing I could do was go into a ditch, a very unfriendly
ditch.” - Jim Wessely
Wessely,
an M.D. and co-director of St. Luke’s Hospital Emergency Department,
described his bicycle accident as the worst thing that has ever
happened to him. In July 2007, Wessely was riding on Melrose Road in
Wildwood like he did routinely with his buddies. The four of them
trained and even competed in a race together just the day before his
accident. Wessely, 56, of Ballwin, did the best he had ever done in
a race. Wessely came in with the 25-year-olds, certainly a victory
worth celebrating.
The next
day, life suddenly changed for him.
Wessely went out riding with his three
friends he calls his cronies with whom he had been riding for 25
years. They went the route they were all used to going.
Wessely admits he was foolish to be
cruising so fast - he estimates 30 mph - down a hill with a blind
curve.
“I had no reason to be going anything
but slow,” Wessely said. “I was going first down the hill, they were
right behind. Then I saw the truck coming and there was no pavement
left to stay on. I went into the ditch and something stopped my
front wheel right then and broke the force. I went flying and hit my
head on a rock that caused a big dent in my helmet.”
Wessely said the force that stopped him
was so strong that it broke the carbon fiber front fork of his
bicycle in half. Fortunately, Wessely had no loss of consciousness
during the accident.
“There I was, lying in a ditch,”
Wessely said. “My friends were far enough back they stopped and
didn’t crash. I couldn’t feel anything below my neck. My thought at
that point in time was that I was completely screwed. I was a
quadriplegic. I saw my right arm but I couldn’t feel or move it.”
Wessely said when he rides with his
friends, one of them carries a cell phone in case of emergencies. In
this ride Wessely had the phone in his pocket. Wessely told his
friends to get the phone and call 9-1-1. When help arrived, Wessely
said he recognized the paramedic from work, although he was used to
receiving patients from the paramedic, not being treated by one.
But just before Wessely was transported
to the hospital he found a little hope. His friend told him he was
moving his feet, even though Wessely did not know it. Then Wessely
tried to move his hands and he did very slightly. Then Wessely said
he started to feel a tingling sensation all over his body, like one
would feel after their foot or arm falls asleep.
When Wessely arrived at his ER
department, he knew his physician.
“I knew I had a spinal cord injury,”
Wessely said. “When I got to the ER I still had this tingling all
over, but was able to move my hands and feet. I told Dr. Meinzen
right away I broke my neck. I did and they told me it was bad. I was
in terrible pain. My neck hurt like crazy.”
Wessely’s neck hurt for good reason. He
had nine broken bones: six in his spine and neck and three ribs. He
could feel the pain through the morphine shot. In a couple days,
Wessely was facing an 8-hour surgery and months of recovery,
continuing even to today.
“First they went in through the front
of my neck and used a special screw to stabilize it,” Wessely said.
“They had a special brace around me holding me up, everything was
very precise and that takes time. At one point they turned me over
and then put in the screws and plates that I will have forever.”
Wessely said the recovery after the
surgery was extremely painful. Surgeons stabilized Wessely’s head
from the outside with a halo. Wessely described the contraption as
torture from which he still has the scars.
“They insert screws in through your
skull that are connected to this halo around your head. The halo is
connected to some bars that go down around your chest,” Wessely
said. “Then there is a vest over your chest that the bars go into to
keep your head and neck from moving at all. It was very painful.
You’re kind of suspended in this halo. Sleeping was horrible. I had
to have that on for two months.”
Wessely said he thought that would be a
good day when the halo came off, but then the hard collar he had to
wear next made his neck even more painful. Then Wessely said he hit
another bump in the road when, after the halo was removed, he began
to lose sensation in his hands and have tingling in his arms.
Wessely said the fear that all of sudden, after overcoming so much,
he would still become paralyzed hit him hard.
Wessely’s doctors discovered he was
having swelling of the spinal cord as a delayed inflammatory
reaction from the trauma. |
“They said all we could do was wait,”
Wessely said. “I was very depressed, but then over a period of weeks
my wife noticed I was using my knife and fork again. I thought I was
just adapting. I was going to physical therapy and occupational
therapy. It was so painful, but it gradually got better and better.
Now I have some tingling just in the tips of my toes and fingers.”
Wessely said his neurologist thinks the
tingling will go away in a year or so.
“I honor the surgeons who put me back
together again,” Wessely said. “I’m so happy I’m doing as well as I
am. They (my colleagues) told me to just get through this and I will
go back to work. I even applied for disability and got it. But just
when I got approved for it, I went back to work. I really wanted to.
I lost who I was. What I was before the accident was a doctor on
committees. I felt very happy and good about myself. I was in great
shape. The day before my accident, I finished in a race with
25-year-olds. To lose all that in one second; I lost being a doctor.
I was a terrible husband. I hand it to (my wife) for sticking it
out, I was horrible.”
Wessely said he had tremendous
unexpected support from so many people who helped him and his wife
through everything. Wessely said he knows he was rough on his wife,
Anne.
“She has a lot of friends, but
sometimes so many people were so concerned about me they didn’t
think about her. In a way, she was a silent victim,” Wessely said.
Wessely is back at work, but not quite
physically ready to get back on a bike. But in spite of it all, he
says he wants to get back behind the handle bars.
“My doctors think I can ride again,”
Wessely said. “Most people I run into say you’re crazy to ride a
bike again. I’ve ridden my whole life. I’m not going to race
anymore. I would be very careful if I ever ride again.”
Wessely still prefers cycling as his
form of exercise. Running is too tough on his knees and the impact
is too much for his neck. Swimming also is a little awkward for now.
Wessely’s bones in his neck are fused together, preventing them from
turning and looking from left to right.
But at least his sense of humor is
fully recovered.
“My joke is I can’t say no because I
can’t turn my neck that way because the bones are fused,” Wessely
said. “My wife loves to take advantage of that.”
As for the truck that forced Wessely
off the road, no charges were ever filed because the driver was
never found or came forward. Wessely said the truck drove on and he
isn’t sure if the driver knew he went off the road.
“The truck just went on,” Wessely said.
“I remember it all. It was a big full-sized king cab truck. I
remember he laid on the horn when he saw me, but didn’t move over.
He was way over on the left side of the road. It’s a wide road, but
there isn’t a lane marker and cars usually drive in the middle if
there isn’t a line.”
Wessely’s advice to other road cyclists
is to be careful and prepare for the worst-case scenario when on the
road with cars because most drivers are looking for cars, not
bicycles.
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