Today we’re celebrating 15 years of me not being dead!

It was a Saturday morning in 1995. 11yr old Andrew was playing DOS games on the computer, and he was getting bored. After realizing that the computer games were no longer interesting, he decided to go ride his bicycle.

It was a 10speed, solid frame, black and silver bicycle. He got it out of the garage, and started riding around the neighborhood. After a little while, Andrew was coasting down a long hill. It was not a steep hill, but very, very long.

There was a stop sign at the bottom of that hill. Unfortunately, it was covered by the branches of a dogwood tree. Andrew never saw it, and the cross street was hidden from view by the contour of the land before it. The car never saw Andrew, Andrew never saw the car, and…CRASH!!! Andrew practically t-boned the passing car on his bicycle, hitting the driver’s side rear fender. He flipped over the handlebars, and crumpled to a heap in the middle of the road, lying still, unconscious.

Luckily a couple was walking in the area, and saw Andrew. They called 911, and an ambulance came to get Andrew, and rushed him away to UT Medical Center.

UT Medical Center

Andrew had suffered a traumatic brain injury. He was not wearing a helmet. The left side of his face was swollen very large. It appeared he had gotten in a fight with the ground and lost. His whole right side was paralyzed for a period of time. After 24 hours on a respirator, the doctors said Andrew was going to survive, and that he might be able to walk again. Andrew was transferred to the Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center in Fort Sanders Hospital while he recovered.

Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center

5 days later, on Thursday morning, Andrew woke up in a strange bed with a curtain around it. His first thought was, “Where the HELL am I?”
His second thought was, “Man, I have to pee!”
After getting out of the bed and finding a bathroom just around the corner, Andrew went back and sat on his bed. A short time later his mother Kate came and found him, explained what had happened, and he would be staying at the hospital while he got better.

At the young age of 11, Andrew wasn’t sure what he thought about staying at a hospital, but he soon got used to it. There was a recreation room, with a pool table and a piano. Breakfast at the hospital was pretty good. Lunch wasn’t so good, but Andrew was learning to cope, and trying to completely recover.

A week later, Kate asked the nurse if she Andrew could spend the weekend at home. The nurse said, “Absolutely not! Are you crazy?” Kate’s response was to ask the nurse to come and see Andrew before she made that her final answer. After seeing Andrew bouncing off the walls in his room, the nurse said Andrew could go home for the weekend.

The next week at the hospital, Andrew discovered a new hobby — wheelchair racing! He could walk just fine, but it was fun to FLY down the hallways of the hospital in his wheelchair. Unfortunately, the nurses relieved him of his wheelchair, claiming he didn’t NEED it anymore. Who said kids didn’t NEED to have fun?

The end of that 2nd week marked the end of Andrew’s hospital stay, and then he spent several months at home, being CAREFUL of his head, and taking homebound classes as a substitute for school.

November 1, Andrew returned to school. He had missed the first two months of 6th grade, and was not allowed on the playground for the remainder of the school year, to ensure that his head would not be re-injured.

So today, Sept. 2, 2010, we are celebrating 15 years that I survived the bicycle crash. I can walk. I learned how to dance, and I’m still not dead.