Life changing event....

[ruggedscot]

Has anyone on the forum gone through a life changing event ? Something monumental that had a massive effect on thier life?

My own story relates to an incident back in 1998, It was one of those biggies that really had an impact that continued on. Still can get sore heads and my shoulder can get sore when its really cold.


I worked overseas back then working for a civilian contractor that provided support to the british army camps over in Bosnia. I was stationed near to a place called Sipovo - the british field military hopsital was located there. We looked after the camp facilities and let the army get on with keeping the peace. It was a good job learned alot on how to deal with fixing things with not a lot in the way of spare parts. Had a dead diesel genset up in a hillcamp near to Banja Luka it wasn't playing ball tired some easy start on the bugger and boy did it wake up on that stuff, bounced of the overspeed trip but we got it running. Next start it ran like a bag of nails till it evened out. Just under a year I was there, Banja Luka to begin with and then down to Sipovo - some great people and some good times. Living in a corimec (portacabin) and not having much in the way of worry - laundry done on camp food provided and tax free salary... Yep a way to earn some decent money. On the way out was sat in the bar at Gatwick bricking in when it sank in that I was going to Bosnia - was worried about the landmines and the trouble with the locals little did I know that it would have been a landrover that nearly got me.

If anyone has watched Auf Wiedeshien Pet then they would have an idea of what it was like - that program had an uncanny realism for what it was like - I saw blood drawn for soemone taking some of someone elses milk for their cereal...

Anyways I digress - one weekend a local employe that worked for us doing general labouring duties organised a barbeque down at his house so a few of us went to the party. At the end of the party one of the guys from the camp came and picked us up and took us back to the camp.

Well he should have - on the way back he drove into a truck at the side of the road. We were in a landrover and it deformed severely. I was in the front passenger seat so took the majority of the impact. revived at the scene by a group of medics who happened to be near by (Field hospital gates were just across the road) we were at the second camp which was up the hill.

I ended up with a sub dural bleed and was airlifted to Sarajevo where the only CT scanner in the whole of Bosnia was located - the German field military hospital. Was scanned and the bleed controlled - thought I was through the woods, and over the worst but it got worse and the bleed came back, I was airlifted over to the UK and taken to the wessex nurological in Southampton where I had some burr hole surgery to remove the clot. Touch and go from what I heard as I was in and out of conciousness, police escort from the airfield to the hopsital and then went through the surgery. Trust me to arrive in Southampton in the middle of the boat show - my poor parents had to endure going from hotel to hotel for a few nights. They drove down from Scotland to be at the hospital.

Took a while to recover from that - any surgery on the brain can have an effect, and of course as they had drilled my skull Id my drivers licence suspended. Just in case I ended up having any siezures. Passed the six months duration and got my licence back.

The effect of the accident was to be felt for quite some time with headaches and PTS but you get over it and piece it all back together again. They say its like a jigsaw putting the parts back together again - you never get them all back in the right place but you get to the point where you think yep I can cope with that. Made me appreciate life and made me think on how close it was, People die with less. The doctor said that all the training that I had been doing in my spare time was what helped me get through it. It was the nightmares that followed that really freaked me out - every time it was like I was going through it all again, that the accident was happening all over. So when I hear about people gfoing through this PTS thing I know what they are going through it is such an invasive thing in life and I dont think that we really understand what the brain is capable of.

You never really get over such a thing but you learn to deal with and it gets better as time passses, time being the great healer!

[paul b]

Sounds like quite an injury! Lucky boy! I've never had an injury like that, nor have I ever personally known anyone who has had to undergo brain surgery. I find it amazing how such injuries can be treated these days, as an F1 fan I saw pictures of Felipe Massa's injuries after his crash in Hungary and thought he'd never make it back to full fitness, but he has.

I've had a couple of scary moments, I was once knocked off my motorbike by someone who pulled out on me without looking... I lost one of my front teeth and had a bit of whiplash and bruises, but that was it. Also, I was once removing a gearbox out of an old Audi 80 (Toyota mechanic at the time, this was my first time encountering an Audi!) on my own when I totally underestimated the weight of the gearbox. It fell right on top of me, some part of the casing smashing me on the nose. Blood everywhere. I think I broke my nose, but never went to hospital to have it seen to, it seemed to heal over time.

After the above I said I'd never own an Audi because they were such a pain in the **** to work on. Some 20 years later what did I buy?

[lanciamug]

I wish you well on your continueing improvement.

In July 2001 I was cyling at lunchtime from work in an effort to keep fit when an 85 year old woman decided I wasn't there and put her Rover 200 where my bike was. My injuries didn't seem too bad at the time, a loss of skin from my shoulder, hip and knees, and a dislocated shoulder which hurt. A lot. Anyhow I was due to go on holiday in three weeks and the doctors gave me permission to travel so sore and crusty I flew to Palma with my family and friends.

The first week of the holiday I struggled along OK, limping and sore, then I had a stroke. Well, nothing spoils the fun like a bit of paralysis. Luckily it was only tempory, a ministroke or TIA. I had another 13 of these incidents in the next two weeks, to cut a long story short, I was in hospital for four weeks, one of them in Intensive Care, with intraveinous anticoagulants going into both arms.

I too had my licence removed for six months and had to attend the Wharfarin clinic with all the old people but gradually I got better and life returned to some kind of normallity.

It has been along hard slog though and I'm still not as I was. So yes, you could say it was a life changing event.

All the best to you.