Health update, and a few thoughts on safety equipment

I've had a lot of people call and ask about this, so I thought I would give you an update on my recovery from a fairly serious accident I had about four weeks ago.

As many of you may know, I've been involved in harness racing as a hobby ever since I was a teenager (my Dad trained horses for a living). I was driving in a horserace and at the end of the race my horse ran into another driver’s sulky. The horse fell suddenly, throwing me to the ground. I was immediately knocked unconscious, suffering a serious concussion (my brain was bruised with some of the blood leaking into the spinal fluid) and some other injuries. I ended up with two CT Scans, three spinal taps and an angiogram as a follow-up, and in intensive care for several days.

Many have asked how the horse is - I'm happy to report he came through better than I did, with only a few scrapes and bruises.

I'm back working now, although I am (with difficulty) trying to slow it down a bit, since I am having some lingering effects from the head injury. I'm scheduled for a follow up CT scan in November, and I'm hoping for good news from the neurologist.

This accident has caused me to think about safety, and the importance of using the right safety equipment. It's something thst I'd like to pass on to all of you.

As I always do when racing, I was wearing a good helmet and a protective impact vest as a precaution. Like most people that are in accidents, I wasn't expecting anything to happen and when it did, it was so sudden it was too late. My head hit the ground so hard I put a crack in my helmet (it’s similar to a motorcycle helmet) and the neurologist was pretty blunt about telling me that the helmet saved my life.

And although I had a separated shoulder, after watching a video of the race I know that the safety vest is the reason I didn't suffer any broken bones.

My point is that because of the precautions I took, even though I wasn't expecting anything to happen, my life right now is a lot better than it would have been otherwise. The same thing may happen for you too, every time you make the choice to wear your safety glasses, a helmet or other types of personal protective equipment, or fasten your safety belt, etc.

You just never know when that little precaution may have a big impact.