Tim's Story
MVC occurred in February 2009 that crushed my left ankle and broke both bones below the knee and I endured several surgeries.
12 surgeries total until February 2012, and that’s when I made the decision to go ahead and remove my leg. I had a left below knee amputation.
The accident occurred in Kentucky while driving in my truck and around 12:30 am, a deer came off the hill and across the road. To try and react to avoid this, I hit the concrete barrier. I was all alone and so I called my wife who is a LPN. She drove to find me and then drove me to the small hospital in our town. By the time I arrived I was ‘hurting’ ----in a great deal of pain. I was then placed in an ambulance and taken to a larger hospital for treatment. Since my wife is a nurse, she did all of my care, but things continued to get progressively worse until I made the decision for amputation. In our small hospital in Kentucky we did not have anything like the Trauma Survivor Network. I grieved the loss of my leg all alone and my years served in the Army helped me get through it.
Last year I met a gal, at the Adaptive Athletic Expo, and she introduced me to adaptive ice hockey. I now play for the Knoxville Sled Bears and am known as the “Enforcer”. I’m pretty active with running, hiking, hockey, camping and now even work as a prosthetic assistant for a surgical company so I get to help others that have learned they need an amputation and all that it includes.
