Trauma Romeo

It’s hard to explain the thrill of dirt biking unless you have ridden one but it easily became a passion of mine several years ago. To me, dirt biking has a lot of parallel components to snowboarding and skiing which I have been doing since I was 4 years old. I have always been magnetized to using natural terrain and gravity as a medium for challenging myself, not an opposing team or a ball of some kind. I never really got used to a coach telling me what to do so I seemed to have chosen the “alternative” sports in my life. The rugged terrain that the western U.S. has to offer fill my urge of searching for fun & excitement, conquering fears & unknowns, pushing myself to the limit with a few thrills & spills, and experiencing beautiful places and moments with good friends. I get pure satisfaction and fulfillment by doing these activities and it helps to balance out the more serious side of my life. I guess its a few loose screws that I never wanted to tighten because then I feel like I would be missing this sense of balance.

Since I have been getting a lot of questions about my accident, I thought the best way to share the event is in writing with some photo/video documentation. This way, everyone gets the same story and I am not repeating myself like a broken record. This was a life changing event for me and I want to be able to share this experience with family and friends and fellow risk-takers that could maybe learn a thing or two from this incident. A lot of stuff happened within a 5 hour time frame on one beautiful Friday evening...

Friday, May 15, 2009

Jon and I dirt biked all day on trails around the Colorado River east of Moab - Dome Plateau, Kokopelli trail, and Top of the World loop. I had just met Jon Kinzinger the day before when we arrived at the Big Bend campground outside of Moab, UT to participate in the annual Testical Festival (TF) where you must have stupid or funny looking hair to attend and participate in random camp activities including mountain biking, rafting, golfing, etc. Jon is a physical therapist at the U of U who has a KXC 200 2-stroke. He and I were the only ones with dirt bikes this year. This was my first year of attendance.

Anyway, we had an epic day riding the trails and it was getting to the time where we were tired and decided to cruise back to the truck to load up and head back to the TF camp. From the Top of the World trail, there’s about a 5 mile leg on a dirt road to get back to the parking area where the truck and trailer were parked. With about two miles to go and getting a bit heavy on the throttle, I ended up racing past Jon on a gradual up-hill climb on a loose dirt/gravel road. Needless to say, 4th gear was feeling pretty good when the winding road suddenly turned a sharp right as I was heading west. The turns on the road up to this point were gradual and could be taken with a bit of speed and fish-tailing. As I approached the turn with a lot of speed, I realized it wasn’t going to be a smooth, leaned in right turn. I braked to try to make the turn but to no avail, went straight instead and launched ~35' + feet into the air. Similar to locking the brakes up in your car on an icy road, once the wheels are locked, the momentum of the car will send you striaght into the direction you were going when first applying the brakes. Same thing happened to me on this corner, except it was two wheels and loose rock/dirt. That is where I made my mistake. What was below that cliff wall could have been anything and I give credit to learning how to spot landings on a snowboard and always try to land on my feet. Any other angle and I don't think I'd be writing this story. Once airborne, I ejected from the bike, spotted my landing which was a smooth slickrock ledge jutting out into the wash. I stuck that with my feet, then tumbled down into the bottom of a slickrock canyon wash with the bike tumbling over me at one point or another. The next thing I remember was, “o.k. I survived, there’s my bike, huh, it’s sticking straight into the air, and there’s my leg, damn that doesn’t look good.” No more rumble from the bike, it was silent. The bike ended up pointing straight into the air with the rear end submerged in a pool of water and I ended up lying next to the pool of water on the upward side.

I could not walk as I totally deformed my left foot which was quite visible through my motorcycle boot and could not step down on my right foot as I cracked the heel bone there. The rest of me seemed to be o.k. Luckily, Jon was behind me and saw me vanish off the end of the road. He came to my side immediately and I'll never forget the look on his face when he saw my left leg. He ran back to his bike and got me 2 excedrin and 4 ibuprofen. Knowing that my ankle and feet were damaged I immediately started to take deep breaths in between the moaning and groaning from the pain, shock of what just happened, and anxiety for what was going to happen next. Jon and I kept constant communication and he was essentially my stronghold at that point which saved my life.

Since I could not walk, the panic started to set in that I was going to have a very hard time getting up and out of the desolate canyon wash that was obviously not visited often by people. I couldn't crawl on my knees as the slickrock was too smooth with steep ledges. Jon couldn't get any traction either. I was still in panic mode and told Jon he couldn’t leave me just yet, but we didn’t have many other options. As I was desparate to get medical attention and we couldn't get back up to the road, Jon had the idea to try starting my bike and ride it slowly down the canyon wash while piggy-backing me in hopes of the canyon shallowing out and maybe meeting a road or something of the sort. After tearing apart broken pieces on my bike, he amazingly got it started! This was the tough part because half of my seat was gone and I tried sitting behind him while holding up my left leg with a tie-down and not putting pressure on my right leg. We started out that way but we weren’t making much progress so then we tried another method. I got in front, secured my left leg to the handlebar with the tie-down and rested my right leg on the right foot peg. With me controlling the bike, Jon stayed on the left side and made sure the bike didn’t lean or fall to the left side. We made it about 200 yards, carefully negotiating through sandy washes, over-brush, and ledges. At one point, Jon had to remove a dead tree that was blocking the whole bottom of the canyon. We then came to a rather steep ledge that forced us to stop where we were. The canyon did shallow out a bit here and we decided that Jon should go and seek medical help on his own.

Laying by myself, disabled and trying to prevent the shock from setting in, I thought about the T.V. show - "I Shouldn't Be Alive". It was about 6:00 in the evening at this time with three more hours of light left. Jon did come back about a 1/2 hr later with some mountain bikers we ran into at the "Top of the World" trail resting spot we were on earlier. This was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to in my life. Since we were a ways away from any cell phone coverage, the mountain bikers sent a crew to go seek 911 and about 6 friendly fellows came down to keep me company. We spent this time swapping stories of this and that, making jokes, and generally getting to know each other. During that time, Jon was trying to get my bike out of the canyon and grab stuff from my truck for me. About one and a half hours later a Moab cop shows up, then the ambulance crew, then the helicopter crew from Grand Junction, CO. The heli-crew brought the good stuff! After getting the I.V., the medics removed my boot and set my foot in an air brace, then they put me in the stretcher. I was eventually lifted out of the canyon and back to the road via stretcher and one beefy off-road wheel that helped support the stretcher on the up-hill climb. They loaded me into the chopper and we took about a 20 minute flight to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, CO.

For some reason, they named me “Trauma Romeo” and I was introduced to everyone at the hospital that way. Of course, I then had to explain my haircut because of the odd looks I was getting. I had a massively comminuted/compound fractured left ankle including Talus/Calcaneous/Navicular/Tib/Fib fractures. I had about a 5 hour emergency surgery to somewhat fix that in which the medical team applied an external fixator (external rods that are mounted through my skin and into the bone to essentially fuse my ankle and stabilize the bones). They also placed in some donor bone to fill in the part of my Talus that was disintegrated. At least 2 months on the right and 3 months on the left for non-weight-bearing.

My wife and mother-in-law came down from Salt Lake City that evening (Friday) and I couldn't have made it this far w/o my wife’s love, support, and encouragement. She has been by my side every step of the way (pun intended). We spent 4 days in the hospital and then borrowed my MILs SUV to take a smooth 5 hour drive back home on Tuesday, May 19. The drive went surprisingly well. When we arrived home, I had realized very quickly that our house is not meant for wheel chairs.

I'm very lucky to have such wonderful family and friends. Through all of this, it’s the people that have amazed me the most. Thank you all for your kind words of encouragement and support.

Jon and I at the Top of the World

Overlook at Top of the World (a couple hours before the jump)

View looking up from where I landed. Went off the road at the upper left and landed toward the middle of picture just above the hole.

The skid mark from my bike in the bottom right quadrant of the photo and ledge that I landed on is in the upper left quadrant, just above the pool of water where I and the bike ended up.

Shot of my leg and bike where I was waiting for Jon to find help.

Looking down the canyon from my resting spot.

Getting the good stuff!

WARNING: The next two photos are not for the faint-hearted!

First view of external fixators post-surgery.

Getting my wounds cleaned!

Yep, thems me feet staying dry during wash time.

Hill climb on Top of the World Loop.

This is on the corner moments before the fall.

Re-cap of where I went off (Jon commentary).