Train Accident Survivor
Hi, my name is Branden Amrhein. I’m from Toledo, Ohio and I’m 25 years old. My birthday is November 14, 1990. On November 11, 2012, I was at a friends birthday party in Swanton, Ohio. Everyone was drinking, playing beer pong, sitting around a bon fire. I arrived at the party at 10 p.m., after everyone had already started. I played a round of beer pong and then sat around the fire for a moment. At the time I weighed around 130 lbs and was only wearing a light sweater and jeans. There was a keg and I had drank one beer during my round of beer pong, and I grabbed a refill on my way out to the bon fire. We smoked a couple bowls of marijuana out of a glass pipe. Around midnight I started getting a hold of other friends for a ride because guests were sleeping in tents and it was a chilly night. All of a sudden I started feeling weird and paranoid, so I walked out to the front lawn to get away from the crowd of people.
And that’s the last thing I remember. After that I woke up in the hospital a nurse standing above, strapped forehead to toe to a bed; a neck brace around my throat. I couldn’t feel my body from the waste down because of the morphine drip already hooked up to me. I started trashing and the nurse held me still, telling me over and over again that I shouldn’t move, I had been struck by a train. I slowly drifted back to sleep.
I woke later, straps removed from my body but neck brace still firmly around my throat. It had been 16 hours since I had been taken by helicopter from the scene of my accident near Garden Rd. and Shaffer Rd near Swanton to UT Medical Center in Toledo. My family and close friends were there now. My entire body was sore, even with the morphine drip still attached to me. I still didn’t know what had happened to me. My family said that the conductor saw me and tried to stop but called for an ambulance after he wasn’t able to. I later found out he said I had been laying dead center of the tracks.
When the doctor finally arrived, he told me that my major injuries were to the back left side of my skull, my left shoulder, and my left hip. He said that tests were ran but they were still waiting on results. He asked me if wanted to remove the catheter and to try to walk to bathroom. I agreed and with heavy support, I was able to. After I was back in my bed, the doctor left.
About half an hour later, a nurse came into the room with a wheel chair, saying I was being discharged. For reasons now unknown to me, my family and I went along without a word except if I was going back home with my roommates or home with my mother.
After three months, I was able to walk again with the support of my roommates and family. I went to a brain specialist who was on the recommendation page of my discharge papers. He did a check up on me but didn’t run any types of scans; only a physical examination. After that I lost faith in finding any answers. Four months later I started working again, getting back to a normal worker life.
I have been to the doctor one more time since my accident, and have yet to get any test results given to me. For the longest time I was okay, except for dealing with the mental aspect of what had happened. I stopped enjoying being around large groups of people and suffered panic attacks whenever I was forced into being around a violent situation derived from anger. But I still enjoyed the good company of my close friends. Physically, I felt better than before, except for the days and nights that the weather got anywhere near or below freezing. When the weather gets cold, parts all over the left side of my body experience different kinds of pain. After long exposures to freezing temperatures my hip would start to give out, forcing me to use support to get around again, normally a cane of some form.
Today is March 5, 2016 and I couldn’t have been more wrong. As the snow falls outside I sit here and there’s not much to it. I can’t walk through the house without support, and without a cane this time I have resorted to using anything close to me. I have found that leaning on anything knee high works well when I try to stand still for an extended period of time. I am not working and have no form of income. I am living with my mother and her boyfriend. Most days I spend with this tight pain in my chest on the left side. My left shoulder throbs with pain if I don’t lean against something after a few moments. I have went to a dentist and ended up with all of my teeth extracted and wear a full mouth denture set.
I don’t know where to go or what to do.
