Chapter Fourteen: Prayer Answered

It was about ten days after my prayer that I decided to take a long bike ride into downtown Long Beach. I'd stop by an ex-employer to see if there were any jobs available and then continue on to the Palos Verdes area. It would be a long ride, 20 miles or so, a good workout with hilly climbs and lots of nice scenery. I had already been riding my bike quite extensively since my car broke down; I was more than ready to start pushing my stamina limit.

I was riding up Long Beach blvd. when I got hit by a van and thrown against a parked truck. I don't remember much from the accident. According to the police report the driver said he never saw me, though he did report hearing a loud thump on the right side of his vehicle. That was my body colliding with his van that he heard, breaking off his side view mirror while shattering my ribs on my left side. The collision must have thrown me over my handlebars. My body struck a parked pick-up truck leaving a one foot by one foot indentation in the tailgate, breaking my pelvis in two different places. My body landed next to the drivers side door of the parked vehicle, but not before my head hit the asphalt so hard that it broke the bridge of my nose. I received a scrap on my right elbow and a torn rotator cuff, probably from the landing. The driver would've kept on driving if it wasn't for the witnesses who were screaming for him to pull over.

I remember barely opening one of my eyes to get a blurred vision of someone looking down into my face. That must have been the paramedic. I kind of remember being loaded on to an ambulance and being off loaded at the emergency room. Staring up from the gurney I could see emergency room personnel gathering around me as I was wheeled through the doors, and that was it. According to the medical report I had a positive loss of consciousness, I guess meaning that I passed out but hadn't gone into cardiac arrest. My memory of the experience doesn't get clear until after I was injected with morphine. By then I had been taken to get catscan images of my head, neck and midsection. From the looks of my head injury the medical team was sure I had multiple skull fractures, but the catscan came back negative. I often joke with people that it's my Polish heritage that saved me there; the Poles have always been known for having hard heads. I'm sure the Docs wanted to make sure that my injuries didn't require immediate surgery before administering morphine to numb the unbearable pain. The report said I was complaining about the pain, though I remember nothing before the morphine injection. My mind has wiped any clear memory of the traumatic experience.
My memory comes back to me as I was giving a nurse my personal information. I was fading in and out. One time I awoke to see a Doctor stitching up my right eyebrow. I asked "How many stitches?" and he replied "Oh, about 40." I would have raised my eyebrows in amazement but I didn't want to ruin his handiwork. All those stitches went to my forehead-told you I have a Polish hard head. I remember a rod being drilled into my knee for a traction device for my broken hip; I kind of wish that I was unconscious for that one. I blew bloody snot bubbles through my nose as I hyperventilated through the procedure.

My ex, my parents and my two best friends were notified of the accident, but my friends were the only ones to come see me in the emergency room that night. One of them later told me that as they were walking back to their car he turned to his brother and said "Boy, Mike sure fucked himself up this time." Once I found out that I had been taken to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center I was greatly relieved. Having grown up in Southern California all my life I knew that the hospital had one of the best trauma care units in the county. I also knew that, even though I had no medical insurance, from an ethical point of view, they would have to treat me and fix me up the best they could. My whole body felt shattered. I immediately knew that I was lucky to be alive.

Next up: When a Nice Sunset May be Your Last.