Anyway, as I now lay there waiting for Dr. Delirious, Dr. Hackenbush, and Nurse Ratched to bring results from the CT scan, I was once again back staring at the ceiling and those damn lights thinking how stupid one man could be.
Would I be able to, once again, shake this injury off and get back up where I belong? (That might be a good line for one of the next songs I write.)
When I finally received the diagnosis, I found out that I had broken my L1, L3, and L4 vertebrae, and that they had found what I thought was totally impossible: a brain bleed. I had never really been told that there was a brain inside that melon.
It turned out to be true, and before I left the Stoughton Hospital, they did another brain scan and found that it had stabilized.
If there is any bright side to this episode of ideocracy, it might be that — after breaking the L1, 3 and 4 vertebrae — I have now completed the full running of the alphabet vertebrae breaks, much like when you have a bad run on your Chili Bowl qualifying night and have to run the alphabet on Saturday to get to the main event.
I had previously broken T3, 4 and 5 and the granddaddy of them all, C1 and C2. So, I‘ve got that going for me anyway.
I finally made it home and, after a few days of not moving other than to try and turn over, I am doing quite well with the help of some medication. At first, I was against taking meds for pain, but the professionals changed my mind.
I am up and moving a little with the help of my walker and, if I follow orders, which of course I always do, I should heal up in a few months.
The upside is that this current injury has given me time to reflect on how, over the past 50 years, every time things seem to be going really well in my life, I somehow manage to screw it up with my carelessness.
In racing, it started in 1971 when I was starting my second year of midget racing. I was excited about buying one of Paul Kruger‘s Dari-Cool racers that my hero Billy Wood drove and would be running in my whole 1971 season.
I was riding high on life with this new ride, about to graduate from Rock Valley College and go on to pursue my racing career, when in March I was involved in a bad fire.
I spent until mid-June in the Rockford Swedish-American Hospital burn unit and wouldn‘t get to race but one race in late-September.
Then, in 1983, after winning the USAC midget title and rubbing my hands together thinking of collecting that $50-per-race champion‘s appearance money, I broke my back in Seattle, Wash., again taking me out for most of the season.
As we moved on to 1984, I was again flying high driving for the best team in midget racing at the time, Greg Wilke and Wilke Racing. I was at Hales Corners, Wis., fighting for the USAC midget title and battling with Tom Bigelow for the lead when I went over a lapped car‘s rear wheel and broke my neck in the C1 and C2 vertebrae.
As 1985 rolled around, I had recovered and was back winning races. Life was once again going to well. I had just won the race at Olney, Ill., in the great Rollie Helmling‘s rocket when I was run over on the highway by a drunk driver, tearing my shoulder out of its socket, requiring surgery, and once again interrupting my soon-to-be million-dollar career.
I returned again the next year and kept winning some big races, and had some good crashes along the way including breaking my sternum at Granite City one night and reinjuring it again two weeks later qualifying in Wilke‘s car on a heavy Sun Prairie track.
Luckily, I avoided any serious sheet time and those damn lights.
But, in 2016 things came back like a bout with those damn ladybugs every year. I had a car hoist fall on me due to my carelessness. I got busted up pretty good and spent some sheet time, but healed fairly well until 2018 came around.
Somehow the road rose up to hit me on my motorcycle, leaving me with five broken ribs, a broken scapula, and a punctured lung. Wisely, I was back in Donnie Kleven‘s pretty little No. 9 midget nine days later.
With my 2020 tree ordeal now in the mix — along with all the prior concussions, burns, bruises, divorces, etc. — I guess I have all this going for me.
So, as I write this today, for all you little leaguers and modern day racers out there, there may be a message for you in all my screwups. It may not be so bad if you, at some time in your career, find yourself looking up at those bright, recessed lights and moving your feet back and forth.
For sure, I don‘t want to see any of you hurt! But you just need to know that something could possibly happen in one of these cars where you may end up scared, lying in an emergency room feeling the pain of what you just did.
I worry that, with the safety equipment in today‘s cars, it might give a lot of young racers a false sense of security, believing that they‘ll never be the one with tears in their eyes and petrified thoughts of never being able to walk out of the crash house.
Fortunately, it looks like I am back on the road to recovery. I‘m pretty sure that I have learned my lesson and will not be so careless in the future. (Stop laughing. It‘s not funny!)
And, in closing, here‘s one final thought: People don‘t kill people, ladders do.
Support your NLA (National Ladders Ass’n). – KO
