Got up today with the intent of getting a lot done around the house and on the lathe.
Well, my bod had different ideas.
About 10-odd years ago, I was flying a night mission on NVG’s. While hanging out the door and conning my pilots down into a confined area, the rescue door came off its lock and slid back.
It caught me square in the helmet and crushed my head between the 5’x7’ sliding door and the aircraft door frame. Cracked my flight helmet nearly in half and 15 grand worth of NVG’s went flying out into the blackness. They’re classified as weapons and thankfully the Army guys found them the next day on exercise. That would have been one hell of a lot of paperwork.
But, in the process of crushing my helmet, the door actually broke my neck. We would find out later I had a fractured C5 vertebrae and the C4/5 disc had almost exploded to mush. That was the end of the mission and the SAR Techs had me strapped to a backer board and in a cervical collar until we RTB’d where they already had an ambulance waiting for me. Takes a lot to freak those boys out and they were genuinely worried I was going to end up a quad. So much so that they strapped me down so tight I could barely move my fingers and even when I did, they’d loose their minds and order me not to even move my hair. Took many months and lots of mind numbingly boring physio before the flight surgeon would clear me to fly again.
It never healed quite right so its a problem from time to time. To this day, I can’t do a left shoulder check when driving. Neck just won’t rotate that way anymore.
As I was starting my day, my neck went “crick” and dropped me to the ground.
Well, so much for getting lots done.
Took about 30 mins before the wife could get me off the floor and a couple hours before I could get up off the bed. VAC actually gave me one of those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up things” and it tripped when I fell to the floor. They called and the wife had to assure them that I was ok, even though she wanted to call 911 herself. I wouldn’t let her….
I did manage to do a few small things though. One of them was removing the lathe backer board and giving it a fresh coat of black engine enamel:
Came out pretty good and compliments the smoked plexi doors on the cabinet nicely.
Not bad for a guy with a broken back and broken neck…even if the wife gave me a thorogh dressing down when she saw me xrossing the garage with the backer board in hand….lol!
