I was recently reading a post by @jennifer78 about her near death experience. This got me thinking that I don't really share much about my life, I share my interests but not really much about me other than music I like and my gym training.
So for this series A Window into my Life I will be sharing things about me which I guess I don't really share with anyone.

I would like to encourage other Steemit users to kick off their own version of this series using the tag #windowinmylife
I think this could be a really great way to get to know people better.

To Participate just use the tag and post 1 post per month, where you share something which had dramatically impacted you life. I'm sure we will see a huge range of cool posts.

So let me kick of this series, with something that impacted me in a massive way.
 

⚠️ Warning - This Post Contains Graphic Content ⚠️

☠️ My Accident ☠️

 

About 10 years ago I was working as a builders laborer, which I did enjoy. On this particular day it was really hot(about 40 degrees C) and we finished up on a job site about mid way during the day, so we decided to call it a day and have a relaxing rest of the day.
I got home and my brother just happened to be driving up to the city, as we were living out in the country and my car had broken down I decided to ask him to drop me off on the way at my friends house up the city.

So I got to my friends house and he didn't tell me on the phone, but he had just brought a new motorbike.
Me being a lover of bikes insisted that he takes me for a spin as he has two helmets. We both weren't wearing any safety gear other than our helmets.
So we went for a small cruise along the beach, and then headed back home.

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We were about 1 kilometer from getting back, doing 50 kms per hour when someone pulled of the side road without looking. We had no time to react and my mate jammed on the brakes, but braked a fraction too hard on the front brake. So the bike went up on the front wheel.
This all happened in about 2 seconds.
When we hit the car I knew I was heading towards the car head first so I stuck my hands above my head and locked them into place, in the hope that I would protect my neck from the impact.
Well that turned out to be a very back thing, because my left arm went through the windscreen and as I flipped over the bonnet of the car my arm got dragged through the window.
After the flip over the bonnet I landed on my feet and my first thought was "i'm still standing so my back and neck aren't broken", then I looked down and saw blood splashing on the ground like someone was running with a bucket and you could imagine the water splashing on the ground.

Then I looked at my arm.
I could see both my bones in my forearm basically from my hand to my elbow. My arm was just destroyed from that window.(For those that aren't squeemish it was a degloving injury, but I must warn you if you google this you will see some pretty gruesome stuff)
Pretty much the instant I looked at my arm, the adrenaline rush I got was no joke a thousand times stronger than anything I have experienced before and that's coming from an adrenaline junkie. My heart literally felt like it was going to tear out of my chest.
Then everything went in ultra slow motion, it was like time had stopped still and I was the only one moving around.
I was losing blood so rapidly that I knew if no one helped me, I would be dead in a matter of minutes. I had one hand and had to hold my arm together.
I remember yelling at the people in the car to help me, but they weren't moving or responding.(People said they didn't help because they were in shock, but I tell u bloody what I was the one in shock.)
There were people playing tennis on the tennis court about 30 meters away, so I started walking towards them yelling for help.(One of them turned their back on me and they proceeded to play their tennis game and would not acknowledge me, but could clearly see I needed help. this still affects me to this day and I almost gave up on humanity because of it. Pray you never have to experience this, it cuts the soul so deeply.)

At this point I turned back towards the car and my mate had come to after being briefly knocked out, he looked at me and rushed straight over to help.
I remember him lifting his arm to try cut of the blood flow, but his arm was just flopping around like there was no bone in there. He just say sorry dude I can't help you while trying to use his arm over and over again.(He wound up between the bike and the car, and his arm got shattered when it got crushed between the bike and the car. He now has a metal arm)

That was it there was no one to help me.
I honestly thought this was the end and I had lost so much blood I was starting to feel really weak. I saw a P plater car come screaming up the road towards us and I just stepped in the way to try and get them to stop.
At this point a man grabbed me and dragged me of the road onto his lawn.(After I got out the hospital I went and thanked him, and found out he was on the phone to the ambulance, then rushed out to help me.)

He managed to cut of the blood flow with the help of his 7 year old girl and a tourniquet. (I also found out when I went to thank him that he was in a serious car accident and the nerves in his arm got pulled from the spinal cord, so he had one dead arm he couldn't use at all.)

Then we waited for the ambulance.
When it come they did a bunch of stuff like give me pain killers and bandage my arm.
Then we went in the ambulance for a 20 min drive to the hospital. The EMT was really nice and helped comfort me as I was clearly distressed.
I remember looking at the ground and seeing a really large puddle of blood on the ground, and I said sorry I'm bleeding all over your ambulance. He replied yeah I know m8 we can't stop the blood flow.

When I got to the hospital I was rushed into emergency and there the doctors were going crazy trying to assess the level of damage by taking off the bandages and taking xrays. Then I was wheeled into another room where they told me to put on this gas mask thingy and said count back from 10 and you will be asleep. It took me a few mins for the gas to make me drowsy.
I remember them wheeling me around but I was basically out of it and had no idea what was going on, so I just layed there. Then I heard my mums voice and I said don't worry mum I will be fine, then I remember hearing the doctor say you're not supposed to still be awake I'll fix that. That's the last thing I remember.

I then woke up in my hospital bed 8 hours later at about midnight, I had no idea what was going on then i realized my arm was in a sling and the whole experience came flooding back. I cried because I was in pain and I was realizing that my life would never be the same.

☠️ What Actually Happened to Me ☠️

 
Well I found out why I was bleeding so badly, turns out I severed both major arteries(Radial and Ulna) in multiple places.
My arm was ripped apart really horrifically and took 6.5 hours of surgery to put back together, along with some skin grafts, 86 stitches and 25 metal staples.
I managed to save my back and neck by putting my arms above my head, by reducing the impact force. But I still would up with 3 crushed vertebra and whiplash in my neck, there was something wrong with my shoulder forget what it's called and what ever else is wrong with me.
I say that because my arm was so bad, I didn't know my back was messed up until a few years later when I kept complaining that my back was always sore and sometimes it got so bad I couldn't stand. So my doctor run some x-rays and found my crushed vertebra.
I also had a few other lacerations on on my chest which required additional stitches.

Oh Wow this post is much larger than I anticipated.
I will do another post talking about my recovery process, how this affects me and much more in another post.

So there you have it everyone, you now have some great insight into just one of the many things I have had to endure in my life.
I think I turned out pretty good, even despite this awful experience. I can stand proud knowing that I have rebuilt my life, retrained in a new career and make good health choices.