deathday recap
deathday party was good
got completely wasted
saw a lot of friends
the kids baking skillz were appreciated
oct 7th 1993
working graveyard at taco bell
get off around 8am
go home, want to go to moms house for spaghetti
and the fairwood library for the copy of the gripping hand that i had finally worked my way up the waiting list to
don't want to drive in rush hour, so i kill a couple hours with my room mate
i'd been having problems with wearing makeup because i sweated it off too quick dancing
but i liked the goth dancing, and when in rome
so i tried out basically clown grease paint with some powder, for a sweat proof
i figured the drive with the helmet on would simulate the sweatiness of the dance floor, so i had the make up when i suited
left around 9:30
take 5 south to sr900
heading east bound
dumptruck pulls out of the stop sign in front of me at 68th
it's uphill and it probably just didn't want to have to stop and start again
it's tough uphill with a big dumptruck pulling a trailer
it's a 50 mph street, so i'm doing 50-55
i'm in the left lane, i see the dumptruck, but not the trailer
it looks like there's space, but to play it safe i change lanes to the right
mirror, headcheck, change lanes
then i realize there's a trailer behind the dumptruck as well
brake hard, break harder, lay it down, then hit the tire of the rear trailer
hit it side on, apparently mainly with the upper body, or it was just the less resilient part
decelerated pretty quickly from whatever i had managed to slow down from 50, to 0 in milliseconds
helmet did it's trick
leather not so much for impact armor
left side compressed, causing 10 ribs on that side to bend too far and break
squashed the lung which in the process got punctured by rib parts
collarbone and shoulder blade were equally inflexible and broken
5 vertebrae were also broken
bruised up the heart some which contributed to it stopping beating for the first time
i remember them taking off my helmet, then it was a quick fade to black
apparently they restarted the heart with cpr, one of the guys at the scene knew it luckily
ambulance came and took me to harborview
they tell me i flatlined in there and they had to give cpr again
i remember being in the emergency room, but pretty out of it
and one point i remember someone saying,"oh that's so sad, he's a clown"
so the make up survived, but failed the goth test
they gave me a drug so that i wouldn't move to upset the catscan machine
then the did the scan
then they kinda rolled me off to the side, or so it seemed
there was a tube down my throat feeding oxygen because of the collapsed lung and all
somehow, it stopped feeding in oxygen
i could tell that, but i couldn't say anything, being all immobilized and shit
then i heard, "we're not getting any oxygen over here, we don't have a pulse"
and they started the cpr
and with the 10 ribs being broken, it sounded, and felt, very crunchy
there were no tunnels, no lights, no heavenly choir, no burning flames
just pain and blackness
and the last thing i really remember thinking, my final thoughts as it were, was hoping they wouldn't have to get the shock paddles
the managed to restart it again, and that was the last time it's stopped beating
when i came too i was in intensive care, and unable to speak do to the tube shoved down my throat
when they finally got me a dry erase board, i wrote out the bit about dying for my mom first thing
the nurse said, "you couldn't know that, you were dead"
was in intensive care for week
then a regular bed for another couple weeks
then stayed at my moms in a body brace on a craftmatic bed for 3 months
god i came to hate that brace with a passion
though i did manage to rent a wheelchair so i wouldn't miss dreamcon, cuz i had prepaid for my membership
they put stoplights in at that intersection 3 months later
before i was even out of the brace
some visual aids
the purple course charts a vague approximation of my path
amazingly enough, this random google image turned out to have a dump truck making a left turn at that intersection.
first time i died was just a few miles from where i was born
got completely wasted
saw a lot of friends
the kids baking skillz were appreciated
oct 7th 1993
working graveyard at taco bell
get off around 8am
go home, want to go to moms house for spaghetti
and the fairwood library for the copy of the gripping hand that i had finally worked my way up the waiting list to
don't want to drive in rush hour, so i kill a couple hours with my room mate
i'd been having problems with wearing makeup because i sweated it off too quick dancing
but i liked the goth dancing, and when in rome
so i tried out basically clown grease paint with some powder, for a sweat proof
i figured the drive with the helmet on would simulate the sweatiness of the dance floor, so i had the make up when i suited
left around 9:30
take 5 south to sr900
heading east bound
dumptruck pulls out of the stop sign in front of me at 68th
it's uphill and it probably just didn't want to have to stop and start again
it's tough uphill with a big dumptruck pulling a trailer
it's a 50 mph street, so i'm doing 50-55
i'm in the left lane, i see the dumptruck, but not the trailer
it looks like there's space, but to play it safe i change lanes to the right
mirror, headcheck, change lanes
then i realize there's a trailer behind the dumptruck as well
brake hard, break harder, lay it down, then hit the tire of the rear trailer
hit it side on, apparently mainly with the upper body, or it was just the less resilient part
decelerated pretty quickly from whatever i had managed to slow down from 50, to 0 in milliseconds
helmet did it's trick
leather not so much for impact armor
left side compressed, causing 10 ribs on that side to bend too far and break
squashed the lung which in the process got punctured by rib parts
collarbone and shoulder blade were equally inflexible and broken
5 vertebrae were also broken
bruised up the heart some which contributed to it stopping beating for the first time
i remember them taking off my helmet, then it was a quick fade to black
apparently they restarted the heart with cpr, one of the guys at the scene knew it luckily
ambulance came and took me to harborview
they tell me i flatlined in there and they had to give cpr again
i remember being in the emergency room, but pretty out of it
and one point i remember someone saying,"oh that's so sad, he's a clown"
so the make up survived, but failed the goth test
they gave me a drug so that i wouldn't move to upset the catscan machine
then the did the scan
then they kinda rolled me off to the side, or so it seemed
there was a tube down my throat feeding oxygen because of the collapsed lung and all
somehow, it stopped feeding in oxygen
i could tell that, but i couldn't say anything, being all immobilized and shit
then i heard, "we're not getting any oxygen over here, we don't have a pulse"
and they started the cpr
and with the 10 ribs being broken, it sounded, and felt, very crunchy
there were no tunnels, no lights, no heavenly choir, no burning flames
just pain and blackness
and the last thing i really remember thinking, my final thoughts as it were, was hoping they wouldn't have to get the shock paddles
the managed to restart it again, and that was the last time it's stopped beating
when i came too i was in intensive care, and unable to speak do to the tube shoved down my throat
when they finally got me a dry erase board, i wrote out the bit about dying for my mom first thing
the nurse said, "you couldn't know that, you were dead"
was in intensive care for week
then a regular bed for another couple weeks
then stayed at my moms in a body brace on a craftmatic bed for 3 months
god i came to hate that brace with a passion
though i did manage to rent a wheelchair so i wouldn't miss dreamcon, cuz i had prepaid for my membership
they put stoplights in at that intersection 3 months later
before i was even out of the brace
some visual aids
the purple course charts a vague approximation of my path
amazingly enough, this random google image turned out to have a dump truck making a left turn at that intersection.
first time i died was just a few miles from where i was born