Update on Brad Hochhalter - medical related information only, please

[orgsxrracer]

As many of you may have heard today, we have a unfortunate incident today on the front straight away at approximately 150+ mph. Nobody knows for sure what happened but near the end of the front straight, his ZX-10 darted left and impacted the concrete barrier at a very high rate of speed.

I spent the day with Melissa (his wife) at the hospital and it was tough. He was in really bad shape when he arrived but the great doctors took quick action to stabilize him and stop the internal bleeding.

They had to remove his spleen and they almost had to remove a kidney but they just sewed it up and hope that it will heal itself. His isn't out of the woods yet, his left lung is severely bruised and that is their biggest concern currently so they have a tube in his throat to help him breath and keep his lung inflated. He is down to only 30% oxygen so he is doing better but they are keeping him sedated for another day or two to try and allow the lung to recover on its own. The good news is that his head and spinal cord check out to bee good so they don't believe any serious damages have occurred in those areas.

Now, he has many broken bones that have been low priority in comparison. We still don't know the full extent as after he was stabilized this afternoon, they were going to do more X-rays. We do know that he has a broken right tibia/fibula and broken right ankle, many broken ribs on the left side, left hand/wrist is badly damaged we just don't know to what extent yet. The biggest injury is his pelvis. Both of his femur/ball/sockets are still in tact which is good, but one of the sockets has a fracture. The impact broke the hip/pelvis on both sides so basically the ears on the pelvis on both sides were broken off from the rest of the pelvis. They put a rod through his left femur and put him in traction to try and pull the leg/pelvis back out where it needs to be to try an re-align the bones.

They were also discussing possible issues with his left humorous but I left before the 2nd round of X-rays.

They aren't taking any visitors currently, but stay tuned and I will keep everyone posted on his condition and when you all might be able to stop in and say hello. They plan to have a surgery or two tomorrow to work on fixing his pelvis depending on how is lung is doing. Then he will several more surgeries to repair all the damages and will be in the hospital for some time.

Please be safe out there!

Justin Watkins

[orgsxrracer]

I spoke with Melissa this evening and Brad is doing better. He was able to speak a few words today, even with the tube in his throat and they performed surgery to pin his tibia, fibula and research damaged in his ankle.

Tomorrow is a day of rest for him and Tuesday they will begin surgery to repair his pelvis. Due to risk of infection, he will not be able to have any visitors for several more days. I will post more info as it comes available and let everyone know when and where they can send well wishes etc soon.

Thanks for all the support, I will pass it all along to the family!

Justin

[orgsxrracer]

Good news today.

Today was a day of rest for Brad after having surgery yesterday to pin his right leg tibia and fibula and check out his ankle. He was able to get some good rest in preparation for his long surgery tomorrow to repair his pelvis.

He was awake and speaking with the family today and of course as a typical racer, asked his brother to call me and see if I could take some pictures of his bike so he could see how badly damaged it is. Glad to hear he still is normal even with all the drugs he is on. I told Russel to assured him it doesn't appear to be too bad, but the frame definately needs to be checked, but its really maybe $1k damage total.

They plan to save all the pictures to a laptop and take them in for him to see before he goes into surgery in the morning. That makes me smile!

Wish him luck tomorrow and I should have more info tomorrow evening.

Justin

[orgsxrracer]

Please don't reply in here, lets keep this section small so people can just read the medical updates.

Thanks for understanding.

Justin

[KirkP]

Moderator(s)- Once Justin has had a chance to do a proper update, please feel free to delete this post if it's no longer needed.

SV Hottie and I just got back from the hospital. Brad got out of surgery today at about 3:00PM. They were able to work on both sides of his pelvis, so that means that he won't need an additional surgery to work on the other side (good news!).

[orgsxrracer]

Just wanted to let everyone know Brad is hanging in there. There is a slight possibility that they will remove the chest tube tonight and allow him to start breathing on his own. His lungs have been pretty stable for a few days now, despite all the surgeries. They have been lowering the amount of help it gives Brad and as long as it all stays the way it is now, he may have the assisted breathing tubes removed by tomorrow at the latest. Yesterday they were able to fix his pelvis with one long surgery vs two as expected and today they repaired his broken left elbow. The plan is to work on his left hand/wrist tomorrow. They still have not done anything with his ankle as it has many broken bones.

He has been pretty groggy for the past day or two due to the surgeries and all the drugs but overall is doing well. Its still too early to know if he will have any residual pain or nerve damage of any kind at this stage but the doctors are optimistic at this point that its looking as good as it can due to the circumstances at the moment.

I will post more and it becomes available in the next day or two after his next surgery.

Thanks!

[orgsxrracer]

Great news, Brad has been taken off the ventilator and is breathing on his own and was moved yesterday into TRACU (sp) which is a stepdown room, one step closer to a normal hospital room. They plan to do surgery on his hand tomorrow and still need to have surgeries to repair ankle but he is doing better. He still can't have visitors but should be able to in the next week or so. I will keep everyone posted.

Thanks!

[orgsxrracer]

Brad had Surgery on his hand yesterday and they fixed a few bones in the top of his hand and left a few in his hand and wrist to heal on their own. I guess it was a more painful surgery due to the # of nerves in your hand but Brad did great and is resting and awaiting surgery on his ankle later in the week. They have been waiting for the swelling to go down before they do surgery on it.

He hopes to be having visitors once he is strong and can talk more, right now talking is very difficult for him and wears him out very quickly.

I will post more on visitation shortly.

Thanks!

Justin

[orgsxrracer]

Sorry for the dealy, I was out working my AMA duties at the AMA Superbike races in Barber this past weekend.

I went to visit Brad and he is doing great. He has all of his surgeries done now and he will be setting off metal detectors in airports for years to come. He will have some serious battle scars to tell stories about fand has a long road to recovery ahead of him.

They have the chest tube removed now and he is hoping to get some of the staples removed this week on some of his surgery spots.

He is feeling better and is talking better and was able to go outside in a special chari yesterday and get some fresh air and sunshine.

It sounds like they will be moving him to an off site rehab facility in the next few days and that is great news and I am sure much cheaper as well.

Due to not knowing for sure when he will be moved, we are saving most of the visitation for after the move and when we know when and where he is being moved, I will let everyone know so they can go visit.

Thanks!

Justin

[orgsxrracer]

Well, Brad will be at Legacy for another 3-7 days as the blood thinner they gave him is not working like they need it to to release him so they put him back on an IV and will keep him for a few more days before they allow him to move to an offsite rehab facility.

He can use some cheering up and is strong enough to see people now. But please don't everyone go rushing in at once, please call in advance and find out from him when is good to come visit. Or you can just call and say hello. His direct room number is 503-413-1224 hours he would like people to come visit are 1-8pm and try to keep visits to about .5 hour. The other thing is he doesn't remember any of the crash and we would like if you visit to not talk about the crash. If he brings it up, work on switching subjects. Its all he has been thinking about and he needs to just visit and see people and not think about the crash. This is typical and it will only be harder on him when he cant do much and will be so dependant on others. Everyone who asked to help, soon will be the time and I will keep everyone posted as things come up if Brad or Melissa need help.

Thanks for everyones support, Brad told me to tell you all that he is overwhelmed with the support and thanks each and every one of you from the bottom of his heart.

Justin

[orgsxrracer]

Hey just thought I would let you all know that they are tenatively going to release Brad tomorrow morning to go to the skilled nursing facility. The location is in Beaverton and I will have all the info in the next day or two and will make sure to post it so that everyone will know where to go visit.

Thanks for all the support!

Justin

[Day One]

Thought I'd let everyone know what's going on with me now since it's been a while.

After spending an extra week in the TRACU unit at Emanuel while the doctors gave me blood thinners to deal with my blood clotting issues and tortured me with 3-4 blood draws a day I transfered to the skilled nursing facility at the end of last week.
Since Ive been here my mood and spirits have lifted considerably. The last week spent at Emanuel was a hard time for me and I'm happy to have the change of venue. I've started doing physical therapy and will be doing it 6 days a week now. I can already see and feel a difference from the work which is nice. I have some movement on my legs that wasn't there a week ago and my hand is getting better too.
The PT is a nice thing to look forward to each day but it looks like I'll still be in here for a while and truth be told I'm not looking forward to it.

I'll post up more as time goes on.

[T-race]

Brad, glad your rehab is progressing along. Do they give you an estimate to the idea of starting to walk?

Take care,
Tracy
PS: MileHI and I will tip a toast to you at Pikes Peak next weekend. Wish you were coming with us!

[aquabob]

Brad:

It was good seeing you on Tuesday. Your spirits seemed good, and you were in a pretty good mood (how can you not be with a fresh plate of teriyaki chicken and rice? :) ). Let us know what else you need so you're not bored out of your mind.

[mxjunkie80]

nuttin