sons motorbike accident...
 

on the 20th Nov (nearly a month ago) my son was on his motorbike and went head first into a car that pulled out in front of him, he was doing between 30-40 mph.his head hit the car first and then his knees.the car went over the front of his bike and his legs. an ambulance was called and took him to hospital. the chin area of his helmet was smashed to pieces and the chin strap had cut through his chin from the force of the impact. he had leg lower lacerations as well. when i got to the hospital he was in xray so i looked at his helmet, it was full of blood. his chin had been glued by the time i had seen him. he was still wearing jeans which had been rolled up. he had a bad cuts that exposed his shin on one leg and loads of cuts on the other leg. his knee was massive but no obvious injury. he was stitched up while i was there but his biggest complaint was the pain in his head. he couldnt open his mouth either. i assumed he had been fully examined. 3 hours after the accident he was sent home.

as it turned out he then went on to suffer really bad concussion, dizzy, sick, nearly falling unconsious. we went to the GP who confirmed concusion. two days later we went back to the hospital for dressings to be changed and mentioned his jaw and knee. they xrayed his jaw and found it was broken but they couldnt see anything on the xray to explain his massive leg and knee swelling. his leg was bandaged from hip to ankle. anyway his knee has been really bad and getting worse, clicking, popping and locking up. today we have been at the hospital again, at our insistance and have been told he has damaged his Cruiciate Ligament, his Colateral Medial Ligament and cartialage damage and something about a Mensical Tear (ignore spelling). his knee is now in a brace and he is waiting for an MRI scan appointment. this could take 3 months to get!

even though his knee and leg were hugely swollen and the xray showed no breaks he never had the knee examined until now..........could he have done more damage to the knee as he has been trying to walk on it?

and the really unbelievable part is......how the hell can an A&E department send home a person who has had a head on collision with a car after only 3 hours? the ambulance didnt remove the crash helmet straight away incase he had spinal damage, but just knowing what had happened and looking at the crash helmet should have set the alarm bells ringing in A&E, which was completely empty when i arrived, so they were not rushed of their feet.this has all happened at the same hospital.........HTF can this happen? :mad:

sorry its so long winded :D

Name and shame!












(and hope you never have an accident in their catchment area!)

I'd make an official complaint. He certainly wasnt treated correctly. Head injuries usually require 24hour stay under observation.

I do hope he recovers quickly!!!

You'll be suprised how quickly you can heal!! Ive broken both legs, arms, wrists and gone through the screen of my car and apart from being stupid I have recovered quickly from each accident

i have already complained to the Quality Assurance Officer at the hospital and when we went to see the doctor at the hospital 2 weeks ago he mentioned that he had seen the letter i sent and wanted to apologise to me. he said that a lot of units at the hospital had closed, staff had resigned and morale was low. the matter is being investigated now. that on its own is bad enough but for his knee injury to have been completely missed and not even examined is unacceptable.

Quite agree. It is. Me thinks a letter to your MP is on the cards ... But I'll also re-iterate what others have said. I hit the side of a car when we were doing about 80+ mph years ago (I was pillion). Flew over the car and slid up the road in jeans, trainers and cloth jacket. Was unconcious for a time. After stiching up knees and elbow I was out within 3 hours as well .... but am fine now. Just make sure that now the problems have been seen use the old blackmail technique if necessary (" .. well you missed his ligaments, what else have you missed ... " ) to ensure there are no more problems.

Hope he's better soon. Oh, and don't try to dissade him from bikes! I was back on mine the next day to ride the 60 miles home .... :D

Dave

i can kind of relate to this, i too when i was 17 had the same kind of accident,not as bad injurys, my helmet came off on impact, ripped my face off/apparantly we have 8 layers of skin, i removed 5 of them, 1 more and i wouldnt have stubble anymore, anyhoo, i was kept in over night as i too had head pains etc, bandaged up/stitched up.

to be discharged 3 hrs later is very strange especially with the injuries.

they wanted to keep me in longer but i knew i was fine after the 1st night, and wasnt half as bad as ur son sounds

from what i was told on the night, xrays dont show up all the nasty bits when parts are swollen,so maybe this is why bits were missed ?

i expect alot of therapy wil be done on th eknew, occupational i think i had.

Good luck with it all.......

he has already been out on a bike. i went mad at him because he is still suffering concussion and keeps forgetting things. i am surprised at how many of you lot have got back on the bike while you were still broken. boys will be boys :lol1:

maybe i shouldn't be so hard on him :thumb:

he was working full time and doing a carpentry apprenticeship. thats all up in the air now. how long does the knee op take to get over? i know footballers get the cruiciate injury but footballers are big babies :D

my son said his head or jaw wernt examined but they shone a light in his eyes. they never even removed his jeans, they just rolled one leg up and xrayed it. he had to tell them that he thought his other leg had cuts too as they hadnt looked. there are too many things that were not done. we had to go to another hospital for his jaw and while we were there he told someone that his crutches were uncomfortable. someone looked at them and noticed that they were two different size crutches. there was no way to get them the same size. the nurse said that you can sue the hospital for this :cuckoo:

its good to know that you have all recovered :thumb:

Because the Hospital will be trying to meet Labour party Targets.

Bring'em in, bandage them up, and get them out.

Have been at the receiving end, and at the mercy of hospitals. I spent a year at hospital recovering from a RTA.
My well wishes to your son and hope him a speedy recovery.

a year :eek2:

dare i ask what you did?:wonder:

Crash, by the sounds of it. Badly too.

i didnt think he had gone shopping :D

anyone got any scars to post up? :thumb:

I wish this story wasn't just a one off, but it isn't. :(

Pity I can't get A&E on the private either.

Hiope he gets sorted. My mate screwed his Cruiciate ligament (footy injury). It will need operating on at some point, but the norm is to build up the other muscles to help counteract it, but it'll never cure it.

Its St Hughs isn't it Sara...........or have I been watching the Bill too much ?
Seriously :
I dearly hope your son (never realised you were old enough to have a motorcycling son!!) is soon on the path to full recovery.
My three brothers have all had bikes and at some time or other had accidents. At last, they have all relinquished them this year for various reasons and my mum has heaved a huge sigh of relief. Not that they were bad bikers, but for the other nitwits on the road who just don't see them.

Mither and pester the hospitals until you get satisfaction. If your gut is telling you there's something amiss, there usually is.
Good luck for him .
Yve

thanks guys

every time we have had to use a hospital for something there are always things that have gone badly wrong. it cant be just me that gets all the bad luck:confused:

from what i could understand he has damaged the ligaments at both sides of the knee and the cruiciate id behind the knee cap and is crossed over. he has got a robo cop style brace to wear, he hates it. it straps on over the top of the 8" scar over his shin

Sara, do whatever you can do to get him into a car, young lads in cars are still a liability (as are some older ones) but its a whole lot better than a bike at that age.

even though he has been back on a bike he wants to pass his test and get a car. he has conquered his fear and will prolly get a bike when he's a bit older. he wants a super bike when he can afford it:thumb:

its sad really sad. when i wrote off my first scoob in may, i was in and out of the hospital like a flash. accident happened at 4.06am. ambulance etc was very quick to arrive after a witness rang one. but i was in a taxi on my home at 6am. i was knocked unconcious for a few seconds due to my head going through the drivers side window, had glass in my head and arms, blood dripping from my inner ear. was put in neck brace etc and rushed to hospital, totally out of it. police demended an interview asap, did that, and was then xray-ed, and thrown into a taxi home to get a bath and rid my body of many shears of glass.

pretty **** really. whiplash still causes me discomfort, even though the recent accident at work did me no favours.

id complain myself, at the time i didnt realise what my rights were, and i was well out off it, concussed etc.

hope hes okies anyway sara, ive done my cruciate before and it took 12 months to repair... not the best of fun.

andy

i cant remember off the top of my head but you have can sue a few years after the incident, not suere though. you can with car claims:wonder:

12 months is a long time, is that after the op?

This is awful sara :( :(

i know, been at the hosptal for the last two days. they are going to see if they can get the MRI quickly, but if his knee gets worse they will plaster it, then it has to come off for the scan:(

Give him my love :)

[quote=84of300]Give him my love :)[/quote

i will, lesley :thumb:

a long time :( my dad has had his done and he couldnt walk very far for a good few months its getting better now though and thats 7 months on!

:(

i was hoping a long recovery time was not the norm. he cant go to his evenings at college, thats the main problem, his jobs ok as someone is covering that for him, he wont be happy when i tell him:freak3:

This sort of thing is endemic across the country unfortunately. Having lost a parent in hospital, the care and supervision sometimes left a lot to be desired. This isn't an attack on the nurses and doctors as such I hasten to add, just the lack of resources. Obviously you have fallen prey to the same predicament Sara. Hopefully your son wil make a full recovery. Best wishes to him.:)

i didnt actually have an operation, unless what i had was damage, but my leg as kinda dangling with no motion. i could feel it, and it was the ligament i had done, maybe not as serious as your son if i did have an operation...

12 months hobbling around, some on crutches, some by myself