2018 kicked my butt. I kept feeling as though, “this has to be the last thing, it’s only up from here”, and then, well- something else would happen. Last night we drove down the street Eugene crashed on, I’ve been sitting on this story for a few weeks now I’m not sure why. I figured it was time I put it out there.
It seems only right that my first official post be about Eugene's accident, for those who don't know-Eugene is my husband, and last January he was in a horrific motorcycle accident. I posted many updates on Facebook but those didn’t tell the whole story, so here it is.
January 20th 2018, I was away on business in Lincoln, NE and had just finished doing a training event. I was sitting in my hotel room doing some after event reports and talking on the phone with Eugene. He and I hadn't seen each other much the previous few months as we both seemed to be traveling often for work. He let me know he was going to go on a quick ride with our friend Jake and that he would call me when he got home. It was just a few minutes later that I got the phone call.
Jake's wife Darby was calling me, when I picked up I never could have expected what was to follow. She let me know that Eugene had crashed his motorcycle. I don't know if I can put into words the sunken down feeling I had in my stomach the next few hours were a blur, but they went a little like this...
I actually spoke to Eugene on the phone after Darby had given me a few details as they were waiting for the ambulance to arrive, he sounded in a haze, confused, and shaken up-but I never could have imagined how bad it actually was, and neither did he. Eugene has actually been in quite a few accidents while racing- it comes with the territory, but nothing like this. Eugene will typically make some sort of joke or ask for ice cream after a crash. All he said was “it’s bad Hill” and “I love you”, then Darby came back on the phone and let me know that I needed to get home as soon as possible.
Eugene was literally around the corner from our house, he had just started to replace the clutch on his street bike, so he took out the race bike. The race bike had slicks on it, mix that with a cold day, an old back road with gravel, and it seems all the odds were against him. He was going about 50-60 mph when the bike slid out from under him and he was thrown into a ditch. He slid along the ditch until he hit a concrete berm and went over it and landed a few hundred feet from where he crashed, and the bike was even further down the road. This was around 3pm.
My flight wasn’t for another 24 hours and it was the soonest flight out so I called the rental car company and they would not allow me to keep the car I had (even after explaining my situation) so I had to drive two extra hours to exchange cars. I drove 10 and 1/2 hours and got to the hospital at about 4:30 in the morning. At this point I had been up since early the day before and was 29 weeks pregnant.
Once Eugene arrived at the hospital, they did their initial check on him, He had a lot of visible road rash, but as they continued to check him out they noticed sticks, dirt, and debris along his thigh and back. As they were removing the debris from his backside Eugene started to bleed out on the table. He was instantly rushed from a normal emergency room to a trauma surgical room. On his way into the trauma surgical room- the nurse asked Eugene for his permission to receive blood and he responded "If I really need it", he had no idea what he was headed into. At this point he was still conscious and joking around like he always does.
In his first surgery, the main focus was to find the bleeding and stop it. I'm sure you can imagine what sliding on pavement and through a ditch on the side of a road will do to your skin. Imagine what hitting concrete with a force that comes from going 60mph. Eugene’s left hip and butt is what hit and that’s where the bleeding was coming from. The force of impact literally separated his skin from muscle and muscle from bone, this created tunnels so vast you could stick your hand from the inside of his left butt cheek out to the side of his left hip. He also had an internal tear from his butt up to his back. The doctors initially thought that he had been impaled by something, but we later found out that it truly was just the force of impact.
Eugene received 12 bags of blood, some plasma, iron and a whole bunch more during that first surgery. His sphincter was torn clear up to where his back meets his butt, that is where the bulk of the bleeding was coming from. They cleaned out all the tunnels in his thigh and butt cheek and sewed the sphincter back together the best they could. With the amount of blood loss, pain endured, and pain to come the doctors decided to put him in a medically induced coma.
Once they got him stable and set up in the ICU the trauma Surgeon called me and briefly explained everything. Eugene was stable but they still did not know the extent of his injuries and needed my permission to do a MRI with Contrast. This may not seem like a big deal, but not knowing what was going on with Eugene’s organs there were risks involved and further damage that could be caused from doing the test. I remember asking the doctor what he would do if it was his own son. He paused for a moment and said I would do it. So I said ok, and then had to give an ok to a nurse as well. At this point it was around 10-11 at night if not later.
I remember driving and just waiting for my phone to ring. I don’t know if I was even thinking, I was just driving. The surgeons and staff at the hospital were great at giving just the information I needed to not overwhelm me and made sure to remind me to stop and walk around and drink plenty on my way. They kept reminding me the most important thing was that I got myself and Ryder there safely. The staff at the hospital couldn’t have possibly been any better.
It was a good thing that we did the MRI with contrast, because they were able to see that Eugene had an infarction to his Kidney and that a good portion already had been completely cut off from its blood supply. They also saw air in his stomach. They weren’t sure what the extent of damage would be to his intestines and organs based off of his initial surgery and the MRI gave them a better look. They determined based off the results that they needed to do an exploratory surgery.
They took Eugene back to the surgical room and cut him from chest down to his belt line. They basically pulled things out and moved stuff around to make sure that there weren’t any holes anywhere as they saw some air in his stomach in the MRI. Luckily other than the damage to his kidney, sphincter, and external wounds there was no apparent damage or tears to any of his other organs. During the exploratory surgery, because of his wounds and where they were they decided to give Eugene a loop ileostomy so the wound area could stay clean while he healed. For those who don’t know what that is, they took the top of his small intestine cut it open and brought both ends out of a hole on the right side of his lower abdomen. They then attach a bag to collect the waste and it gets changed every few days. They then put him all back together and got him settled in the ICU. This surgery took about 4 hours.
I remember driving and having my work phone with driving directions going and my personal phone in my lap and I was just waiting for updates. Jake and Darby stayed at the hospital this whole time and kept me updated on things in between the doctors phone calls. I remember having my mom on one phone and the doctors on the other at times and the rest of the time I remember just driving in darkness, I didn't cry much, I focused on the road, the stupid tolls that were so confusing, and the darkness. I don't remember seeing much of anything that whole drive.
As I drove I remember thinking about the things I loved about Eugene. I still look at this and think how weird it may be to others, but I have always loved Eugene’s big strong hands. I loved holding his hand when we were dating, seeing his fingers wrapped around mine. I remember thinking as I drove how I couldn’t wait to get to the hospital, I couldn’t wait to hold his hand, I couldn’t wait to be there with him. My big strong hubby. What I didn’t know to expect was that I would walk into him laying completely flat, neck brace still on, intubated, and literally cold as ice. It was as if he was dead and I stood there in complete shock. I remember walking around the bed and looking at him, he was swollen from the fluids but he didn’t look as bad as I expected, yet it was so much worse if that makes any sense at all. There was blood on the sheets in some places and he just looked lifeless.
Jake and Darby made sure I had everything I needed, stayed for a bit and talked with me and then left. It was about 4:30 am when I arrived at the hospital. I had been up for over 22 hours and was still in my business clothes from the training I had done the day before. I don’t remember when I slept next, I was basically a zombie in shock for the next few days. The nurse on the day shift was also the nurse that was there when Eugene was brought in, she’s literally an angel and I still keep in touch with her now. She went over things with me and showed me where Eugene’s stuff was. It was really sweet- she made sure I knew he had his wedding ring on when he came in and that they took it off for surgery when she handed me the bag.
The rest of this day was a bit of a blur. Eugene was hooked up to so many IV’s the room was quiet yet so loud. Machines beeping, all the monitors, nurses in and out and I sat in the chair that I would end up sleeping in for so long and it’s like I sat still while everything around me was moving. This was still just the first 24 hours. And even after all this- I had absolutely no idea what was still to come.
