Just when things are at their best, something knocks you on your ASS! One week ago I (Justin) was enjoying the life of a 4th year medical student, light work hours, no one really cares what your doing, basically senioritis to the maxium. I was half way through my rural rotation that had required me to drive to Truckee CA everyday and then ..... Feb 23rd. I was the passenger in a Mazda SUV with the doctor I was working with and his nurse, on our way back from a long day of seeing patients in Quincy CA when the driver of our vehicle lost control in the snow and smacked head on to a car coming the oppisite way. For me it was if everything was in slow motion ... It was if I knew we were going to hit the oncoming car for an eternity ... I braced for the impact and then .... POW. The next thing I knew I was looking at my right foot, searing in pain, pointing in a way I did not think was physically possible. I took off my seatbelt and swung my legs out the door to try and get a better look at what was happening. My right ankle was without a doubt broken, but nothing else had really set in yet. I looked at in the dark night at the road we had just slid down moments before, thinking to myself this is bad. Moments later the doctor who escaped unharmed came around to my door, and reduced and relocated my dislocated and broken ankle before moving on to check out the driver. After what seemed like an eternity of sitting there, I saw headlights moving fast down the hill, and something told me that I needed to move. Somehow I managed to get up (a task that I had tried and was unsucessful at several times before) and run to the side of the road just as the third car smashed into the car where I had previously been sitting. I am still uncertain exactly how it happened but I had made it out of the way. As I sat in the snow on the side of the road my body begain to shake violently from cold and shock. First aid finally arrived and with a great deal of help got me onto a back board and into the ambulance on the way to the hospital. While lying in the ambulance I was given a phone to call Natalie, ring ring, ring ring.... oh you guessed it she did not answer. After at least 5 attempts I gave up and call Russ and asked him to get ahold of her. I was taken to Truckee Forest hospital where Iwas pocked and prodded and imaged every possible way. The diagnosis, besides my severely broken ankle, I had lacerated my spleen, I had ruptured my pec away from my breast bone, I ruptured my abdominal wall muscles off of my pelvis and fractured a few spinal process off my lumbar vertebrae. After spending one night in the ICU in Truckee I was transported down to Reno where they fixed my ankle. I finally made it home Monday night. Now for the long recovery. I will be non weight bearing on my right ankle for 6 weeks. Uhhhhhhhh.....
