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I was minding my own business riding my BMW R100 down a long straight road on a dry sunny day, when suddenly I woke up lying face down in the road, sucking on a crash helmet full of saliva.
Apparently I’d had a head-on collision with a Ford Escort, and our combined speed was about 120mph (60 mph each). I’d left the bike, bounced off the car’s windscreen, and sailed 40 feet through the air before landing in the road. For this magical piece of acrobatics I earned myself a right arm Brachial Plexus Injury, fractured right humerus, right wrist, left tibia, and fibula, and a pulmonary embolism. I don’t remember anything at all.
So apparently then, it was ‘all my own fault’ and the police wouldn’t make a huge effort to find out the exact details. So then insurance wouldn’t pay out a penny and even the legal costs insurance didn’t kick in. I’d never had an accident (apart from the odd slide on ice or diesel) in 17 years, and had a clean licence, (so the police kindly didn’t charge me with anything).
Anyway, they took me to the QEII Hospital in Welwyn Garden City where I went into Intensive Care, and luckily for me, the consultant surgeon knew a BPI when he saw one, so as soon as I was stabilised, I was shipped off to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore. The superb Professor Rolfe Birch did some nerve grafts, but the damage really was beyond repair, which I was to find out four years later.
Immediately after the nerve work, I went back to the QEII Hospital where, due to some unhealthy practices, they gave me MRSA (the super-bug; Methicillin-Resistant Staphilloccus Aureas), which effectively turned the bone in my broken leg to mush, and stopped it healing for a year. To cut a long story short, I demanded to see a new surgeon, and was transferred to the Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow. There, Mr Paul Allen saved my leg by means of Tychoplanin and an Ilizarov Frame, and sent me on my way rejoicing. Literally.
After 5 years with a BPI flail (totally paralysed) arm that had shown no signs of recovery, I decided to go for the chop, and had it amputated in June 2002. I do not regret that decision one bit: it is much better than lugging round a paralysed arm for the rest of my life.
To anyone who has recently suffered a Traumatic Brachial Plexus Injury, this is the important stuff:
At first the pain is absolutely unbearable. It takes your breath away. I used to describe it to people as ‘similar to shoving your hand in a deep fat fryer’ (they didn’t understand, they couldn’t. You have to have been there). You learn to beat the pain, and live with it. If you can, take the minimum amount of painkillers you can, and come off them gradually. Not everyone can but I forced myself and, three years post-BPI, I was on no painkillers at all, except for the occasional Paracetemol.
Keep yourself active. If you’re doing things, the brain has to forget the pain to concentrate on what you’re doing. Since my BPI, I have learned to do welding, woodwork, scuba-diving, and ride a horse. I went back to my job as a teacher four months after the accident. Part-time initially, then gradually working up to full-time.
Don’t dissolve into a puddle of misery and self-pity. Your partner, your mum, anyone who is important to you, needs support too. They haven’t got the injury, but by God they suffer from the results of it. I nearly lost my lovely wife because she felt so neglected and ignored.
The main thing is that now you are not alone. When I had my BPI, I didn’t know where to turn for help, advice, and support. Now in the UK there exists a charity to support BPI victims. We are a very new organisation (at present only a website and posters/leaflets in hospitals) but we hope to expand as we gain more funds, and more members.
You can find out more about us at www.tbpi-group.org
Andrew Jackson
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