[nomorecdl]

Hello, Im new to this forum, although ive been poking around on it and reading about other peoples experiences for a couple weeks. Im a 25 year old male who's always been very active, before my injury i was working for a very good company as a mobile service technician/truck driver in western Pennsylvania in the gas & oil industry and loving life. Here's my story...

On the morning of July 10, 2014 I injured my back severely. I was at work, and i attempted to move a large electric motor and vacuum pump assembly that was sitting on a wooden pallet laying on the ground. I wrapped my arms and hands around it and pulled backwards at an angle attempting to rotate it and get it out of the way. I only needed to move/rotate it 1-2 inches. I was pulling rather hard and was about to give up when suddenly the motor and pump assembly slid off of the wooden pallet and onto my right foot.

(Thank goodness i had steel toe boots on or it couldve done some serious damage to my foot) When it slid off the pallet it happened very quickly, and it then pushed me backwards with a lot of force and i fell, but my right foot was trapped and held firmly in place so i couldnt just fall to the ground in a normal manner. My spine bent backwards and i felt a strong pop in my lower back. My foot was still trapped and i was in no position to get myself out of the mess i was in.

My coworker came over and asked if my foot was crushed and/or damaged and i told him my steel toes saved my foot but i was stuck and to my surprise he got in his truck and drove away. He's a 60 year old man, and like many people sometimes do, he heard what he wanted to hear and not what was actually said and immediately shut his ears off paying no regards to the fact that i needed help and left me there as i was focused on finding a way to get my foot free. This all happened very fast and i hadnt yet felt much pain and must've had a large amount of adrenaline going through me at the moment.

Luckily for me there was a guy at the neighboring business who was outside repainting a large propane tank and when he saw that i was stuck and my coworker was driving away he yelled over and asked if i was ok then came to my rescue. He managed to pick up the assembly enough that i was able to wiggle my foot free, but as i wiggled it out from underneath the assembly it fell and now his hand was stuck. I helped him pick up on it as best as i could and he got his hand out.

In shock from the events i still hadnt realized that i was seriously injured, and my coworker was completely oblivious to the entire situation and had already driven away. I walked over towards where the truck i was supposed to be delivering equipment with later that day was and thought about the pop i felt and thought that maybe my hip or something else moved out of place, unsure of what to do and still not in much pain, i bent down to my knees and bent myself forwards to try and get some movement and felt some serious discomfort.

I walked over to the truck i was to be leaving in soon and climbed up into it and as i climbed i knew things were not good in my back and decided to park the truck. This truck is a Ford F650 medium duty flat bed commercial truck, not a pickup truck, and has steps to climb onto to get up in. When i got out of the truck and stepped my way down to the ground that's when i began to start feeling the pain and became overwhelmed with and overfull of adrenaline and panic.

I started to unload the things i had packed in the big truck to transfer back to my company pickup truck and gave up and called my depot manager and let him know i was hurt badly and was taking myself to the hospital and the pain was too much and that i wouldnt be able to wait for an ambulance to get to me and load me up and take me to the hospital. I took the pickup truck and drove as fast as i could to the hospital that is only 15 mins or so away from my workplace. My legs began shaking on the way there and i was very nervous, I made it to the driveway of the hospital and my right leg/foot became unresponsive and my left foot/leg was very numb. They were both painfully numb, and burning&tingling but my right leg was worse it and felt like someone had drilled a hole in my foot and jammed a lit road flare into it, and i could not move it.

I called 911 for help and told the operator what happened and at first she thought it was a prank call when i told her i was stuck in my truck 1/3 of the way up the driveway to the hospital and needed an ambulance to come rescue me and get me the rest of the way there. I reassured her i was not joking and an ambulance was sent.

At this point I was completely terrified, and while waiting for the ambulance i called my father and told him what happened. He was working, but stopped and came to me immediately. The ambulance came, and got me out of the truck and onto the stretcher and the rest of the way up the driveway and into the hospital.

They asked what happened and examined me, i went in for Xrays, an MRI, and not even sure what else but I ended up in the operating room where a laminectomy was performed later that same day. When i came out of surgery, both of my parents were there, and after a little while the surgeon came in to talk to me. He said i herniated my L4/L5 disc and also my L5/S1 was bulging and a nerve was being pinched which is what led to the sudden pain in legs/feet and loss of movement in my right leg/foot. He also said that it is the worst herniation that he has seen in his career and the jelly out of the disc had squirted all over and there were broken bones he picked out of the area.

He wanted to do a fusion, that day. He said about the fusion and my parents both said they'd rather not see that happen and i was briefly filled in with what that was exactly and the future consequences and told the surgeon i do not want a fusion. He thought about it for a little and said he'd have to sleep on it and see how his other board members felt about it and get back to me tomorrow. I was kept in the hospital that night and the next day he came back and said a fusion will be necessary at some point in my future, but since im only 25 years old he thinks trying to hold off on the fusion for now would be best and try some other treatments and therapies in the meantime. I was sent home with a custom fit back brace, and given a lot of restrictions, and was to follow up with my primary care physician in a few days and then with the surgeon later the next week.

At home, i was very sore from the surgery and not able to do much of anything. Just getting myself to the bathroom was a major event. I went to all dr appointments as instructed and much attention was paid to incision and i had not been allowed to shower since the day of injury/surgery until July 28th, 18 days with no shower just added to my misery. The surgeon had me come see him for many follow up visits and wrote me a prescription for aquatic physical therapy 6 weeks after the surgery.

At this point my pain levels had not reduced much if at all, and pain was something i experienced all day long. Standing, sitting, laying, were all uncomfortable, and maintaining any position increased pain. Part of my aquatic therapy included a gentle form of traction, which consisted of my putting a flotation device under each arm and allowing my body to hang vertically in the water stretch out my spine.

All of the therapists there talked about how that was supposed to produce feelings of relief and comfort, and some of the patients chimed in and said that they loved it and it felt so good, but it was anything but pleasurable for me. It felt as though pieces of my spine were being pulled and pried and stretched apart forcefully and was painful. I found it odd that everyone else loved it. I am still in physical therapy currently, still 3x a week, but transferred on Oct.10th to a closer place where im doing land therapy because the therapist where i had aquatic therapy was 45 mins away from home and i couldnt tolerate the long drive there anymore.