how i broke my neck
July 19th, I was camping with a friend near Salem. I woke up around 9am and began to plan my day. I had to be at work at 3pm, I had to get laundry done and play with my black lab, who had been locked in her kennel since noon the previous day.
I left my friends who were all still asleep, got in my truck and started home. About an hour later I pulled up to my folks place where I was living at the time, let my dog out and took her inside. My mom was just leaving. She said she was going shopping at Nordstroms and asked if I needed anything. I hugged her and simultaneously began to open the fridge. I pulled out some cold cuts, tossed one to the dog and walked over to the phone and called Jake. Jake was a friend who lived just around the block from me. I asked him if he wanted to go to Kelly Point Park with me to play with Flash (my lab) for a couple hours before I had to be at work.
I grabbed a Frisbee out of my truck, walked down the dirt ally to the next street where I found Jake washing his car a 1972 Challenger. We got in his car and headed into St Johns. I grew up in NoPo (North Portland) right on the edge of St. Johns. St. Johns is a strange little part of town. It is the oldest part of Portland and at more than one time has been a separate city. It is very much a working class neighborhood that is the geographic arm pit of Portland. What I mean by that is that it is cut off on 3 sides by rivers and unless you have a reason for being in St. Johns you dont just pass through on your way to somewhere else. In this way the area is like a small town. Everyone knows everyone else. Cars going through the neighborhood are filled with friends or acquaintances or at very least you have seen them before. I grew up down there in deep NoPo and was use to it but recognized that the neighborhood was a bit odd.
As we rolled trough down town St. Johns Jake filled me in on the latest gossip. There was an affair that everyone in the neighborhood knew about going on between 3 house holds and 4 people who all lived on our block. It was great fun keeping track of the clandestine ins and outs through cellar doors and unlit porches.
We were soon at Kelly Point. If you are not familiar with this park it is where the Willamette and Columbia rivers come together. The farthest point north you can go and still be within Portland city limits. We would joke as kids, that the only way to get out of St Johns was to swim for it.
It was hot that day, about 95 degrees. We parked and headed into the trees toward the Willamette. On this side of the park there is a big grass field facing the river and looking directly across the channel at Sauvie Island. The local call this area the field
I threw the Frisbee for the dog and she went running through the field. The field was full of people trying to escape the heat. Remember this is St. Johns I new most of the folks sunning themselves. I made my way toward the water as flash met me with the Frisbee. I threw it again, this time it made it into the water about ten yards out. Flash raced out for it. On her way she knocked over a little kid and a cooler. I followed her picking up the kid and the cooler. Flash made it back again with her toy and was dancing around me in anticipation of her next run into the water. I threw it as hard as I could. This time it must have been 30 yards out in the river.
Flashes swim into the Willamette looked refreshing. It was so hot and I wanted to get cooled off as well. I pulled off my shirt, glasses, hat and kicked off my shoes leaving me in just my lime green corduroy OP shorts as I ran into the water. I was between knee high and waste high in water running as best I could, I launched forward and did a surface dive. I grew up next to 2 rivers and had done such a dive thousands of times in my life.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Was I dreaming, am I on another planet, am I dead. I cant see very well, and what is it I am seeing anyway, I cant feel - its as if Im a disembodied head, I cant hear. Wasnt I just camping with Tina, no wait mom is shopping, no NO. At this point I saw Flash swimming around me. This brought me back to reality but scared the sh!t out of me. This murky green stuff in front of my eyes was the river but for some reason I couldnt get out of it. As I panicked I began to yell for help but all I did was produce bubbles. I soon passed out.
I came to and saw everyone. The whole park was standing around me and stranger still there was a tug boat beached off my right side about 20 feet away. I could hear my friend somewhere in the distance yelling hes blue. There was a man I didnt know kneeling off my left side and just beyond him was the tug boat, he was on a cell phone, one of those early cell phones, the kind that came in a suitcase. I heard him say screw the ambulance send a helicopter. Behind me another poorly shaven middle age man wearing a wife beater smiled at me. He was holding my shoulders with his hands and bracing my head between his forearms. The people from the park were organizing to hold a towel up to block the sun from my eyes.
My name is Capt Elroy the man with the phone said. Can you talk? He asked. I responded but to my surprise it wasnt easy (when I damaged my spinal cord I was only left with about 40% of my ability to take a breath). Whats going on? I asked. I was just playing with my dog and... I think you hurt your back. He said. I cant feel my feet. I replied. Capt Elroy looked down toward my feet and said. Your feet are in the water, the water comes up to your knees.
I told Capt Elroy mom was shopping and that dad was at annual training in Fort Lewis. He chatted me up keeping me calm until the helicopter landed.
2 EMTs put a collar around my neck and strapped me to a back board. They loaded me in the helicopter through an opening in the back. As I slid in, it was like going through a tunnel. I was looking up at a group of switches and a pair of headphones. Clip clip, rattle snap and finally a door shut. A shutter and the headphones leaned forward and touched the roof then relaxed back down. A woman came into view.
I guess I found a new way to get out of St. Johns!
At this point I had no idea the gravity of my situation. I was thinking; I hope Jake takes care of Flash and gets my hat (it was new), this nurse is really cute and I have to be at work at 3, I hope this doesnt take long.
They sent me to a cat scan then put me on elevator. The lift stopped, mom got on, at first she didnt realize it was me. When we made eye contact, I KNEW. This wasnt something I was going to charm my way out of. Mom is a nurse and her face told the story. She wasnt upset about what I had done. I could tell she was profoundly shook.
A side note:
Jake saw me doing a dead-mans float in the water and went into the water and found me passed out and blue. He drug me on shore and freaked out. This got the attention of the people close. Soon the panic spread up the park and everyone raced to the shore to help. There were about 100 people standing around me. This got the attention of Capt Elroy who was going up the channel in his tug. He saw me and beached his tug. He had seen someone do something similar the previous summer so he had the forethought to have a deck hand immobilize my spine so I couldnt do more damage to my spine. I found out later he had my mother paged at every Nordstroms until he found her and the found my dad at Fort Lewis
I was 20
July 19th, I was camping with a friend near Salem. I woke up around 9am and began to plan my day. I had to be at work at 3pm, I had to get laundry done and play with my black lab, who had been locked in her kennel since noon the previous day.
I left my friends who were all still asleep, got in my truck and started home. About an hour later I pulled up to my folks place where I was living at the time, let my dog out and took her inside. My mom was just leaving. She said she was going shopping at Nordstroms and asked if I needed anything. I hugged her and simultaneously began to open the fridge. I pulled out some cold cuts, tossed one to the dog and walked over to the phone and called Jake. Jake was a friend who lived just around the block from me. I asked him if he wanted to go to Kelly Point Park with me to play with Flash (my lab) for a couple hours before I had to be at work.
I grabbed a Frisbee out of my truck, walked down the dirt ally to the next street where I found Jake washing his car a 1972 Challenger. We got in his car and headed into St Johns. I grew up in NoPo (North Portland) right on the edge of St. Johns. St. Johns is a strange little part of town. It is the oldest part of Portland and at more than one time has been a separate city. It is very much a working class neighborhood that is the geographic arm pit of Portland. What I mean by that is that it is cut off on 3 sides by rivers and unless you have a reason for being in St. Johns you dont just pass through on your way to somewhere else. In this way the area is like a small town. Everyone knows everyone else. Cars going through the neighborhood are filled with friends or acquaintances or at very least you have seen them before. I grew up down there in deep NoPo and was use to it but recognized that the neighborhood was a bit odd.
As we rolled trough down town St. Johns Jake filled me in on the latest gossip. There was an affair that everyone in the neighborhood knew about going on between 3 house holds and 4 people who all lived on our block. It was great fun keeping track of the clandestine ins and outs through cellar doors and unlit porches.
We were soon at Kelly Point. If you are not familiar with this park it is where the Willamette and Columbia rivers come together. The farthest point north you can go and still be within Portland city limits. We would joke as kids, that the only way to get out of St Johns was to swim for it.
It was hot that day, about 95 degrees. We parked and headed into the trees toward the Willamette. On this side of the park there is a big grass field facing the river and looking directly across the channel at Sauvie Island. The local call this area the field
I threw the Frisbee for the dog and she went running through the field. The field was full of people trying to escape the heat. Remember this is St. Johns I new most of the folks sunning themselves. I made my way toward the water as flash met me with the Frisbee. I threw it again, this time it made it into the water about ten yards out. Flash raced out for it. On her way she knocked over a little kid and a cooler. I followed her picking up the kid and the cooler. Flash made it back again with her toy and was dancing around me in anticipation of her next run into the water. I threw it as hard as I could. This time it must have been 30 yards out in the river.
Flashes swim into the Willamette looked refreshing. It was so hot and I wanted to get cooled off as well. I pulled off my shirt, glasses, hat and kicked off my shoes leaving me in just my lime green corduroy OP shorts as I ran into the water. I was between knee high and waste high in water running as best I could, I launched forward and did a surface dive. I grew up next to 2 rivers and had done such a dive thousands of times in my life.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Was I dreaming, am I on another planet, am I dead. I cant see very well, and what is it I am seeing anyway, I cant feel - its as if Im a disembodied head, I cant hear. Wasnt I just camping with Tina, no wait mom is shopping, no NO. At this point I saw Flash swimming around me. This brought me back to reality but scared the sh!t out of me. This murky green stuff in front of my eyes was the river but for some reason I couldnt get out of it. As I panicked I began to yell for help but all I did was produce bubbles. I soon passed out.
I came to and saw everyone. The whole park was standing around me and stranger still there was a tug boat beached off my right side about 20 feet away. I could hear my friend somewhere in the distance yelling hes blue. There was a man I didnt know kneeling off my left side and just beyond him was the tug boat, he was on a cell phone, one of those early cell phones, the kind that came in a suitcase. I heard him say screw the ambulance send a helicopter. Behind me another poorly shaven middle age man wearing a wife beater smiled at me. He was holding my shoulders with his hands and bracing my head between his forearms. The people from the park were organizing to hold a towel up to block the sun from my eyes.
My name is Capt Elroy the man with the phone said. Can you talk? He asked. I responded but to my surprise it wasnt easy (when I damaged my spinal cord I was only left with about 40% of my ability to take a breath). Whats going on? I asked. I was just playing with my dog and... I think you hurt your back. He said. I cant feel my feet. I replied. Capt Elroy looked down toward my feet and said. Your feet are in the water, the water comes up to your knees.
I told Capt Elroy mom was shopping and that dad was at annual training in Fort Lewis. He chatted me up keeping me calm until the helicopter landed.
2 EMTs put a collar around my neck and strapped me to a back board. They loaded me in the helicopter through an opening in the back. As I slid in, it was like going through a tunnel. I was looking up at a group of switches and a pair of headphones. Clip clip, rattle snap and finally a door shut. A shutter and the headphones leaned forward and touched the roof then relaxed back down. A woman came into view.
I guess I found a new way to get out of St. Johns!
At this point I had no idea the gravity of my situation. I was thinking; I hope Jake takes care of Flash and gets my hat (it was new), this nurse is really cute and I have to be at work at 3, I hope this doesnt take long.
They sent me to a cat scan then put me on elevator. The lift stopped, mom got on, at first she didnt realize it was me. When we made eye contact, I KNEW. This wasnt something I was going to charm my way out of. Mom is a nurse and her face told the story. She wasnt upset about what I had done. I could tell she was profoundly shook.
A side note:
Jake saw me doing a dead-mans float in the water and went into the water and found me passed out and blue. He drug me on shore and freaked out. This got the attention of the people close. Soon the panic spread up the park and everyone raced to the shore to help. There were about 100 people standing around me. This got the attention of Capt Elroy who was going up the channel in his tug. He saw me and beached his tug. He had seen someone do something similar the previous summer so he had the forethought to have a deck hand immobilize my spine so I couldnt do more damage to my spine. I found out later he had my mother paged at every Nordstroms until he found her and the found my dad at Fort Lewis
I was 20
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
--Lo--