bad news.
I heard some really terrible news last night. dan’s best friend, blake, whom I’ve hung out with a couple of times… great guy) got into a really bad motorcycle accident about two weeks ago. he was practicing riding his new motorcycle on the streets near his house, doing slow rides through the town and such. as he went through one intersection on a green light, a drunk driver in cross-traffic plowed through a red light and hit him side on. the driver didn’t even make any effort to stop — there are no skid marks anywhere — he went ahead and ran through three more intersections, dragging the bike — with blake caught underneath it — along for the ride.
luckily, there were two witnesses: one called 911 right away, and the other chased the driver down until she got stopped by a cop for speeding. at first the cop didn’t believe her, but after he checked his radio, I guess he gave chase as well. it was really lucky for blake that someone called 911 right away; he’d probably be dead now if the paramedics hadn’t gotten there sooner.
blake’s still alive, but he’s in really bad shape. the bike had fallen on his leg in the accident, completely crushing it. infection had set in upon the wounds. As a result, he’s had his left leg amputated mid-thigh. he’s also had a hip replacement.
The rest of his body hasn’t made out much better. his aorta had a gash in it (which I think got fixed), his gallbladder looked gangrenous, and was removed in one of the 5 surgeries last week. his kidneys don’t work, so he’s on dialysis. he can’t even process food through a tube right now — a since a portion of his small intestine had been crushed, nothing goes through. he’s basically lying in bed with a bunch of iv bags hanging off of him. none of his organs are working together right now because of the shock… they could take anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months to never to get working again.
janet, dan’s girlfriend, says he’s still alive to the world, though, although it’s hard to tell. he’s been sedated with morphine just to give his nerves a rest. she says they go to visit him, however, since he’s been put on the drugs, it’s been harder to interact with him. he’ll recognize them when they visit, but he can’t do more than move his forehead or try to make a face to show it. the hospital put him on a bed that rotates every 5 minutes to prevent blood from pooling in any particular area. he doesn’t like the bed much; he grimaces a bit every time it moves. (I guess that’s a good sign?) I think he can sort of move his right arm in response to things too. His spinal cord and such are ok. now everything else…
the arraignment for the drunk driver was supposed to be today, but it’s been postponed because of blake’s current unstable condition. they’re going to wait and see how blake does in the coming days. in the meantime, the guy’s bail is posted at $100,000.
Blake is also going into surgery today — they found some sort of flesh-eating bacteria going at his amputated leg now, so they’re going to go in and check on it. if it’s bad enough, they’ll have to amputate more of his leg to try to contain it. if they can’t contain it, and the bacteria spreads… -shakes head-
blake’s used up a lot of blood in this whole ordeal. he’s used about 150 units of blood, and about 10 bags of plasma (which costs about $5,000 apiece.. medical bills are going to exceed 1 million), draining the blood supply of orange county. they’re currently getting blood from san diego county, but there’s only a limited supply there as well.
so, people reading this, if you can, please donate blood or plasma, because my friend desperately needs it right now. He’s A positive, so he can take A or O positive or negative. if you are interested, please contact me, and I can give you details on where to donate, how to donate so that it goes to him, etc.
(you should also donate blood and/or plasma just because there are people like this whose lives depend on blood donations… even if you aren’t A or O, please donate and help replenish the supply!)
sorry, I hate to put a depressing blog up, but this has really made me sad. get in touch with me if you want to donate.