First off, thanks for stopping by my website. My name is Brian Montgomery aka “bdmpastx” on most forums. I was in an accident on May 6th, 2005. While riding my motorcycle in Arkansas on a road known as the pig trail, I was struck by a vehicle. It was a nice day. It was pretty warm as I remember. I was riding with the Texas Sportbike Association. I was not leading the ride as I normally do but I was second in the line of 5 other riders. I was riding 2 up with my girlfriend (now wife) when we got to a stopping/turning point. We would always stop and wait for everyone to catch up when we were about to change directions or get on a different road. We sat and waited for about five minutes for 2 members of our group to show up but they never did. I asked my wife to hop off the bike while I went back to check up on them. I was always concerned with our fellow rider’s safety. So I headed back down the road and finally saw the fellow riders. I waited until they passed before I turned around. I did my u turn then proceeded to pass them while heading back. That turned out to be my fatal mistake. I passed them with ease and was riding along up front when a car decided to turn right in front of me. I remember seeing the white Mercury Cougar coming down the road. I don’t remember hitting it though. The car decided to get into the oncoming lane to decelerate before making the turn. I just happened to be in that lane. I stuck the vehicle just to the left of the driver’s side headlight. I flew into the air striking the windshield and then bounced a total of 156.9 feet to my final resting spot. Due to some of the drugs they gave me, I forgot most of the details. I do remember holding my arm and saying "make sure they don't get away." I kept saying it was a white car go catch them. I guess I said that cause I wasn't anywhere near the car when I finally came to a stop. For some reason I thought that they were going to bail on me and leave me there.

I got beat up pretty damn bad.

The injuries…

The end result was paralysis. I wound up being paralyzed from my nipples down. I was told that I would never walk again. But that isn’t all, there is so much more to paralysis than you can imagine. When you see a person in a wheelchair, you think that they just cannot walk. While this may be true, there is a whole lot more to it than that. I am no longer able to control any bodily functions below my paralysis. That includes using the restroom in the traditional means. I have to use a catheter to drain my bladder and sometimes I cannot control it. The end result is that I have an accident by urinating all over myself. It is one of the most degrading feelings in the world. There are some times that I don't feel like living because of it. However, I am lucky in the fact that I tore my colon during the accident. By having the injury, they relocated the colon to come out of the side of my stomach. (An Ostomy) They then attached a removable bag to collect the stool. Otherwise, I would have a good chance of soiling myself with stool as well.

Sexuality
Sex is also a function that isn’t impossible but it certainly isn’t anything like it used to be. When you become paralyzed, you will find that you cannot feel anything down there. The imagination and the feed back have no physical connection. So getting aroused is impossible. Some people can get to that point but I sure can’t. It kind of takes away the feeling of being manly. This has become a profound obstacle in my newly recently changed life. I have always wanted to have children but this sure is making it more difficult. With all luck, I may be able to have kids someday. But maybe God is sending me a message to adopt. Thank goodness that I have a great, loving and caring wife. Recently, I found out that somehow in the accident I managed to do damage to my goods. I ended up cutting an artery that feeds blood to the goods down there. After looking deeper into the damage, it turns out that the damage is irreversible. Yeah I know, sucks to be me huh lol.  I may be able to have kids, we just haven’t had any success yet on getting a good extraction of semen. It looks like I will have to undergo surgery to extract the semen. I hope to do this very soon. AS soon as Brandy stops her smoking, its on!

Complications
Getting dressed is a pain in the butt. Not being able to move around like I used to has caused all kinds of problems. Try getting dressed without any torso control. I look like a girl trying to get into some of those super tight pants. It takes somewhere in the area of an hour to get showered and dressed. By the time I do get dressed, I feel like I need another shower! My times are going down slowly but it is still a pain.

Showering
Wow, what can I say about taking a simple shower? The day I took my first shower since my accident was the greatest feeling in the world. For the last 7 months since my accident, I had been getting sponge baths in bed. You may get clean with a sponge bath but you sure don’t feel clean. The soap never really gets off of your body. So on December 7th, 2005, I got my first real shower! I cried that day. It was tears of joy. I hadn’t felt so clean in months. It really is hard to explain how life’s simple pleasures mean so much.

Rehab is for quitters
My rehab started on December 5th 2005. That was the day I got to get into a chair I could push on my own. I hadn’t had my mobility and independence since the accident. On the same day, I was riding wheelies all over the place. I even got in trouble a few times by the nurses and therapist. The rehab was pretty hard on my body. I was still in the process of healing. I was weak beyond belief but I didn’t give up. I kept trying to get better and better. I actually did so well that they ended up releasing me early. They were amazed at my recovery.

Returning to work
I got out of rehab on January 11th, 2006 and returned to work on January 16th, 2006. During the first few months, I had no way to drive to work so my wife would have to drop me off each and every day. It was hard adjusting at first but it all started coming together. I think the hardest thing to do was waiting for my co-workers to adjust to my new body. Some people thought I was fragile or something. They ended to treat me like I was going to just fall apart. They wouldn’t give me much work and I was bored. I think that they were scared that I would not be able to do my job like everyone else. But I was fine, I mentally had all the same abilities I had before the crash. I had to prove myself all over again. It took a while but things have gotten much better over the few months and I am getting to do the same stuff I used to do more and more. I actually enjoy work more than I did in the past.

Look out kids, Stay off the sidewalks
The first of February 2006 I started taking drivers education classes for disabled drivers. An instructor came to my office, picked me up and she said hop in! I was like ummm what? You want me to just hop in the drivers side and start driving right on into the beltway without any experience with hand controls? She was like yep! I was like damn. Ummm ok I guess. So I took off. It was weird driving for the first time. But in no time I had the thing down pat. I went to the DPS office and took the test.  I passed with a 100! The DPS officer said that she didn’t have anything to complain about. Imagine that! So I got my new license but had nothing I could drive. I had to sell my Infiniti G35 Coupe because it had a manual 6 speed transmission. I had a Toyota Tacoma too and that was the planned vehicle for modifications. However, since the Texas Rehab Commission was paying for the modifications, I had to wait until they approved all the hand controls and modifications. In the meantime, Jason over at Adaptive Driving hooked me up with some temporary hand controls. I was able to get on the road and drive finally! Man what a feeling that is. To be able to go where I want, do what I want etc. Its so sentimental to me now. The freedom is unbelievable. I was so dependent on things before and those dependencies were gone now! It sure was nice to be able to go out for lunch.

Future Plans
Well, future plans have been met and now I need some new goals in my life. I hope to build a shop on some property where I can work on my own rides and prove my existence. I want to build my own, one off, show vehicle. I want it to be the baddest thing anyone has seen. I got my sights set on something but I don't want to spill the beans out in the public. So look out for the next build at a show near you.

My personal view about motorcycling
Motorcycling to me was a passion. It wasn’t the poser factor that so many people fall into, it was everything that I lived and breathed. I was always at the racetrack, the bike shop or at home prepping a bike. I looked forward to race season. I miss riding more than anyone could imagine. I loved riding my bike everywhere. Some of you might have heard of me taking trips out to Deals Gap, Arkansas, the Texas hill country, etc. I was everywhere! I started out riding a 1993 CBR900RR. I rode the living crap out of it. I blew the motor up at 26,000 miles and put another motor in it to ride it some more. In the great Houston flood of Allison, I had to ride my bike because my truck was being repaired and I didn’t have rental coverage. So I drove in water up to my headlights when a sparkplug shot out of the head. I had to tear the motor down and repair it. Once it was repaired, I sold it to my best friend. I ended up getting a brand new GSXR1000. In the first year alone I had put 26,000 miles on it. I rode the piss out of that bike. I was amazed that it lasted as long as it did. I ended up damn near crashing one day when all the sprocket bolts snapped off of the cush drive at 32,000 miles. It tore the motor up pretty good and I had to weld up the cases. Then at nearly 50,000 miles, the motor gave in. It spun a bearing then punched the valves and self destructed. I was able to find a motor quite easily because lets face it, GSXR1000s don’t last too long in the wrong hands. So I put the motor in the bike and rode it some more…up until the day of the crash. Damn it bike, I miss you! 

Stem Cells
I look back at that day and I know that if I had a full recovery, I would be on the bike again. Who knows, maybe someday I will be able to get back in the saddle again. With promises of stem cell research, it may be possible. I wish the ignorant media and general public knew that stem cells do not have to come from fertilized eggs or embryos. Stem cells can come from fat cells, or umbilical cord blood as well as some other places within our bodies. Let's work towards a more open mind towards the idea and get something going.