*Skip to the bottom if you would just like to see the pictures.*

    August 18th of 2001 - I was a passenger in a car involved in an accident.  I believe the car flipped on it's top after hitting an embankment.  It happened so fast I really couldn't tell you how it happened, all I remember is screeching tires, an impact, and then I was upside down, with a severely broken arm.  If you have ever had your arm broken as severely as mine, you would now how strange it really feels.  It didn't hurt, my arm just felt very disconnected.  I wouldn't have even known it was broken if it wasn't twisted in the wrong direction!  Fortunately my friend got away with just a black eye.

    The EMS could not risk pulling me out the side of the car, so they had to use the jaws of life to open up the back and pull me out from the rear.  A big thumbs up to the Middleburg, VA fire and rescue.  They were extremely quick to the scene, very professional and quick in getting me secured and out of the vehicle.  This accident is also a testament to the Saturn car company.  While I still think the cars are ugly, this Saturn held up very well (as you can see in the pictures) even after being flipped.  The good people from Middleburg were even able to open up all four doors while it was sitting on it's top.

    I have become somewhat of a local celebrity in the Northern Virginia orthopedic community because of the severity and placement of the break.  The doctors were afraid I might have permanently damaged my radial nerve, which means I wouldn't have had use of my right arm for the rest of my life.  But my surgeon Randolph Cook decided to go ahead an fix up my arm.  After an exhaustive surgery I had a plate in my arm holding everything together.  Dr. Cook didn't put as large of a plate in my arm as he would have liked, because he didn't want to risk further damaging the radial nerve if it was in fact just "bruised."

    Well after that, things worked fine, with the exception of going absolutely insane without a job (I had been laid off two weeks before the accident).  I still didn't have used of my arm back, but I was going to physical therapy.  I also was stuck driving my brother's old truck because it was an automatic, while he was having a blast in my car.  Unfortunately due to a misunderstanding with the with the therapist and my doctor I was put into an arm brace too soon.  I ended up tweaking my break too much and the plate on the break failed.  I had to go back in for a SECOND surgery.

    This time around Dr. Cook put the large plate on.  And as you can tell from the pictures (it's the third one in the first row), it was MUCH LARGER.  Unfortunately they weren't able to remove the old plate because the head of one of the screws in the old plate had been broken off when I tweaked it.  So, I have two plates in my arm.  After the second surgery everything went smoothly.  I started to regain the use of my fingers, so I was given this funky contraption that held my fingers up with rubber bands so I could use them.  The doctors predicted I would have 90% of the use of my arm back within 9 months.  I had full use of it by the end of December, simply because I was being stubborn and doing many things I shouldn't have been doing, like driving MY car on September 11th and lifting heavy items when I moved around.  But, I was lucky, it could have gone either way.  Because I was stubborn I might have messed up my arm again.  So, be careful out there kids.

Now...here are some pictures: