Posted on May 10, 2012 · Posted in TBI Voices
This entry is part 2 of 36 in the series Michael

Skull Fractures: Michael Part Two

Michael discusses the severity of his injuries and the severe brain injury he suffered because of the skull fractures caused by the accident.

 

What is the severity of the injury that you suffered in the wreck?

When the other car hit me, my head flew back and I broke the back of my neck.  Then my head flew forward and turned my steering wheel put a whole thing in it and I hit my head.  According to MRIs that I’ve seen, the front part of my head, I don’t know how much of it, is pretty much dead. And there’s spots in the back of my head (because of the skull fractures) because I get an MRI about once a year.

The collision was head on?

It was head on. It crossed the center lane.  We really don’t know why or how.  He was a smoker and the only theory that my dad come up with was he probably dropped ashes on him and was trying to flick them away before he burned.

Did he get killed?

No.  The only person that got hurt was me.

Were there other people in the car?

There was a lady in my car and he was alone.

You were driving?

Yes.

So it hit the corner or the driver’s corner of the front end?

I kind of angled my car toward I took the total brunt of the hit.

Skull Fractures/Broken Neck

You said you broke your neck.

Yeah, well I didn’t break my neck. I broke, this bone back here, where the sensory for your teeth and a couple other sensory areas are, in the brain.

Now is part of your skull fractured?

Yes.  It’s the lower portion back here.

You were in coma because of the skull fracture?

Six weeks.

Where did  they take you?

Well at first they took me to University Hospital, which is a level five trauma hospital, which I didn’t know.  Then after two weeks of being there, they transferred me down to Elizabethtown, Kentucky to be in a nursing home, to be in the pathway section of that nursing home.

With your skull fractures, were you conscious at the time they transferred you?

Nope.

So you were in Louisville, University of Louisville Hospital for two weeks, then?

They, they flew me down to, um, E town.

Had they given up on your prospect of waking up in the time they transferred you?

Well to go about the waking up, you have to back to my accident when I got to the hospital.  I was slipping into a coma, but they also induced one and that, that’s why my dad said I probably stayed out so long.  If they would have let me gone into my coma, I probably would have been up in about two or three weeks.[1]

Now did you have  what they lucid interview interval?  Were you actually awake and communicating for a short period of time after the accident?

No.  There is a, I don’t know I think it’s called a glas, glasgometer or something.  They bring in – they use it you first come in to the hospital for a serious car accident like I was in.  It goes from when you’re dead to 15 your conscious.  I got 3.

Actually, it’s the Glasgow Coma Scale.

That’s it.  Glasgow Coma Scale.

And 3 is actually the lowest score you can get.

I had a 3.  They didn’t expect me to live through the night.

 

Next in Part Three – Memory Returns with Joke

By Attorney Gordon Johnson

800-992-9447

 


[1] There is little medical evidence to support such a theory. Medically induced coma usually resolves as soon as the anesthesia is eliminated.  Inducing a coma will often reduce the amount of brain damage from the agitation that can occur shortly after trauma.

About the Author

Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.
Past Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447