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 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. So we sat and waited for about five minutes waiting for 2 members of our group to show up. 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 head back down the road about 3 miles and I see that our 2 riders were ok and coming along. I waited until they passed before I turned around. I did my u turn then proceed 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 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.

I got beat up pretty damn bad.

The injuries…

·        Broken left arm

·        Broken right arm

·        3 Broken ribs

·        3 Broken vertebras (T4, T5, T6)

·        Punctured lung

·        Collapsed lung

·        Punctured colon

·        Broken pelvis

·        Gallbladder failure

·        Fluid on the lungs and heart

·        Torn rectum

·        Torn colon resulting in a bypass via ostomy.

·        Thumb tendon replacement

·        Recently added: Reproductive damage (artery)

·        I think that may be all… lol.

 

            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. At some times I feel like not 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 for me. Some people can but I sure can’t. It kinda 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.

 

I have found out some new information and it seems that somehow in the accident I managed to do damage to my goods. I ended up cutting an artery that feeds blood. After looking deeper into the damage, it turns out that the damage is irreversible.  I may be able to have kids, we just haven’t had any success yet on getting a good extraction of semen.

 

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 dressed. By the time I do get dressed, I am sweating like a pig. Lol. My times are going down slowly but it is still a pain. Couple this with the urinary issue.

 

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 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 hard. I was still healing from some of my injuries.  I was weak beyond belief. I didn’t give up though. 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.

 

Update: To this day, I am still recovering. I think every day is a recovery. I guess you could call it rehab. I went swimming for the first time since the accident. It was a blast. Here are some pictures…

 

 

Returning to work…

I got out of rehab on January 11th, 2006 and returned to work on January 16th, 2006. 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 tended to treat me like I was going to just fall apart. They wouldn’t give me much work. 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.

 

Update: 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.

 

Look out kids, Stay off the sidewalks…

The first of February I got to start taking some drivers education classes for disabled drivers. An instructor came to my office and picked me up. I met the instructor outside 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…and 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 and took my DPS test the next day and passed with a 100. Even the DPS officer said that she didn’t have anything to complain about.

 

So I got my new license but nothing to drive. I had to sell my Infiniti G35 Coupe because it had a manual transmission. I also had a Toyota Tacoma 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 hand controls. So I am now able to drive where and whenever I want to. The freedom is unbelievable. I was so dependent on things like going to the store or even work. I was also able to go out for lunch.

 

Update: I got the truck modified and I got a new car as you could read in my latest news column. Here are a few pictures of the car and the controls.

 

 

Updates…

I got my Yamaha Raptor 700R GYTR eddition! Woohoo! I was so excited when I got it. It is going to make life much more pleasant. I go to a lot of events that require it. Whether it be going to the race track, car shows, my friends land or to visit my grandparents in the country, pushing a wheelchair through the grass, mud, rocks and such isn’t easy. It is completely modified with an electric shifter, twist throttle and a few other odds and ends. I've been riding the piss out of it. So far I have 3 tanks of gas through it.

 

Future Plans…

I have my eyes set towards getting a new house built. The house that I am currently in is too cramped for wheelchair access and I need to get something a little wheelchair friendly. Showering and such is a major chore and I am looking into making Brandy’s and my life better and less stressful.

 

 

My 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 racetracks, the bike shops or at home prepping a bike. I looked forward to race season and still do. 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!

See, us cripples can fly too!

 

 

Update: I still miss riding you bike…lol.

Here are some links to my google videos…

Deals Gap Run

Texas FM337 Run 1

Texas FM337 Run 2

Texas FM337 Run 3

 

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.

 

Links to my favorite sites:

 

 

You can contact me via email at bdmpastx@att.net

Or call me on my cell at 281-851-5818