JEFFRO503

My Feedback: (9)

Hey Guys........I wanted to just type a quick letter here to let everyone know exactlty how important this RC thing is for me. I think i finally realized that THIS HOBBY , weather it be driving online in this VRC game or in the real world , I see myself sticking with this hobby.

To make a long story short........I have been competeing in another sport for almost 28 years. The sport is Motocross , and I have done pretty well in the sport , with bouncing around in and out of the Pro ranks over the past 10-12 years. I got into the RC HOBBY to ease my way out of the racing MX thing , and to be honest , it's the first real sport / hobby I have found which quenches my thirst for compition like the way motocross does. I am an instructor of MX for kids , and adults alike , from the very beginner , beginner to the faster Junior and some intermediate riders. i will never quit teaching my classes for the kids , but my actuall competition of racing and still taking all the chances came to an end for me about 3 weeks ago.


I have been home for 2 days now from the hospital. I was injured at an indoor track with another rider who had snuck onto the track with nobody looking , and went BACKWARDS! We had a head on collision which sent us both to the hospital , with me getting the worst end of the deal. I was injured on JUNE 3rd , hospitalized for 12 days and then realeased on the evening of June 15th.


My injuries we're.............broken left hand and index finger knuckle , I also lost about 1" off the end of my middle finger (not sure how) , broke my left collarbone in two places , broke my front sternum from top to bottom , broke 5 ribs in the front and three in the rear next to the spine. I bruised my heart , both kidney's , my liver and even my eyeballs from the impact. The worst to happen to me was the left lung which was punctured by one of my ribs , which also tore a 1 -1/2" long hole in my lung.


I have about 4 -6 weeks of recovery here at home i have to do before i can go back to work on light duty , and even longer than that before i can teach the kids how to ride or even ride myself.


What I'm trying to say is that , i didn't realize how important this hobby (RC CARS) was to me until i was in the hospital. Out of all my injuries , the one that bugged me the most was losing 1" off the end of my middle finger. why??........Because if it would have been my index finger , i would of probably never been able to drive RC again..........no throttle finger. If I would not of ever been able to drive RC again...............I would have felt robbed. I have only been into this hobby for a couple years , and racing all my RC's is a blast!!

Anyways.........I'm not sure why I posted this letter here , except for to just inform people of what my experience has been over the past 2 - 1/2 weeks. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I will post this on a couple other RC sites that I'm a memeber of too as well. In the mean time......Keep driving and have fun , that's what i plan on doing as soon as i'm healed up!! DAMN........I miss driving all my RC cars!!!


Jeff Huber ( A.K.A JEFFRO503)

rc car CRAZY

Oooh bad injury. Well the good thing is your still alive. 12 days without rc, Id need a laptop too keep upwith it though on the web

Ben

Mad Wax

Could have been alot worse, like finding out trainee nurses from local uni had a day trip to your ward the day after checking out and were giving out spongebaths.

Be careful, my father was involved in a accident- motorbiker hit front of his van, and AFAIK the biker is now disabled from waist down. Also another biker hit a big artic. truck head on, wheels ran over him. Not much left.

Crazy Canuck

Nasty! I hope they ban the other rider from ever racing again. I guess it could have been much worse but the main thing is that you're home with family and that you will make a full recovery. I too have been in motocross since I was about 10 years old, so that would be about 20 years in the sport. I got out recently after a good friend of mine bobbled a tabletop and landed on his head...broke his c-5 vertebrae and will never walk again. I guess it takes a near death experience to open our eyes and make us realise and appreciate what we've got. At least you can still enjoy the taste of victory and the rush of rubbing and racing! Stay strong and good luck with the recovery, you'll have the nitro burnin again before you know it.

Cheers
[8D]

S.A.E.W.O.T.

WOW![X(]

CapUSA

Sue that loser! If you did have lost your index finger you could still use stick transmitter. Good heartwarming story.

greasysnowball

wow man both of those stories suck. well i mean that sucks they got hurt. I hope you recover quikly man. gl and be sure to exersize when you feel up to it, get ur muscles workin again . and be sure to do some finger exersizes so you are in premo condition when you get back to drivin ur RC car

JEFFRO503

My Feedback: (9)

Wow.......thanks for the support guys!! I'm doing my best to re-coop right now , but it's been hard with having these broken ribs and other breaks , along with my breathing is sometimes hard to keep up with. But i'll tell ya what..............TODAY , i had my room mate fill and start the lawnmower for me , and i mowed the entire lawn by myself today , which may seem easy for most people , but for me right now , it was a huge accomplishment. I feel myself getting better and better every day. I even topped off today and went out and tinkered around a little with my 1/8 Kanai today.........man i wanna drive bad!!


JEFFRO503

itspuddingtime00

Glad to hear the improvements, just don't push yourself too hard. I know from experience with injuries (I used to be heavily invovled in skateboarding) that re-injuring something sucks. As long as you feel comfortable doing stuff the go for it.

greasysnowball

dude that is awesmoe that you mowed your lawn all on your own glad to hear you are getting better. but like itspuddingtime00
said, dont push urself too hard. we dont want you back in the hospital and further away from RC now do we?

mgarzoli

Jeff,
I Too was in a pretty serious mx accident about three years ago. Heres my story of how it happened and how it got me into r/c.
The date was 6/16/03 fathers day that year. My wife asked me what I wanted to do for fathers day. I said I wanted to go riding at the local track. So my family and my brothers family all met at riverfront park in marysville California. I have been riding for my whole life and did a little racing in my day so being on a bike was like home to me.
The day was going really well everybody was having a great time including my kids riding there motorcycles and then it happened. Me and my brother were taking turns practicing the whoops section. He would go thru while I watched then I would go thru and he would watch then we would critic each other. Well on my last turn through I wasnt quite lined up straight when I hit the first whoop. Long story short my bike started swapping ends until it highsided and pyledrove me headfirst into the ground. I heard kind of a popping sound. later to find out that popping sound was my spine and five ribs being broke. I broke it in three place T4,T5,T6 and also dislocated it.
I was transported to San Francisco where as far as Im concerned the best neurosurgoen in the world put me back together whith the help of two 10 inch titanium rod anchored to my spine. He later said that very few people with this kind of injury ever walk again.
My recovery time was 6 months. I had alot of free time on my hands and since I had decided that I would never ride motorcycles againg I started looking for alternatives that would interest me as much as mx did.
I had had a Tamiya Frodg when I was younger and had a blast with it so I started looking at r/c as a new hobby. I researched the internet and bought a t-maxx. I was instantly hooked. Currently I only have two trucks a t-maxx and a Revo. This hobby fills the void that mx did.

I dont know about you Jeff but, I was pretty shooken up about breaking my back. I came so close to being a quadrapalegic or even death its not even funny. I had some days duing my recovery that were tough mentally. I still have moments to this day when I see somebody in a wheel chair. That could of been me!

Hang in there Jeff!!
Mike


(MOD EDIT: Fixed the double paste )

JEFFRO503

My Feedback: (9)

Man Mike...I know exactly how you feel. I have had so many buddies over the years of racing permanetly injure themselves from racing bikes. You know what.........It's really weird but i find the same type of hospitallity in RC as i do in MX. I mean......MX from being around it for so many years , it has a really good "family atmosphere" about it. I find the same thing here in this RC hobby. It has a bunch of really nice , easy going type people here. Just like this message board and a few others i visit , the people always seem really nice. I think that's why i feel so comfortable in it. I'll tell you what else kind of bums me out a little is , that my little brother raced and drove RC's for 15 years when we we're younger , and i always just blew him and this hobby off , like i thought it was really stupid. I have always been close to my little brother , so don't get me wrong. It's just when i was younger , Motocross was all i thought about , and all that seemed important. BUT NOW.......15 years later , i finally realized how fun this hobby is........hell...i have gone all out in the past couple years in this hobby , and now i own more cars , motors , radio's , starter boxes , spare parts ect.....to furnish a small hobby shop!! And now.........my little brother is getting back into it , ecspeacially since i bought him a fully hopped up kyosho Kanai 3 off ebay.......and now we are just about in-sepereatable!!......I think that's awesome!!


The whole time i was in the hospital , i was telling my brother "you know what Josh?"............"I can't wait to get healed up enough so we can go do some driving!!" Just looking at his face while i was laying there was something i'll never forget and it kind of tears me up inside when i remember it. His look was like ( I hate seeing you punish yourself in the motorcross , Just drive RC's with me and we'll be fine".......ya know?


I still have almost 4-6 weeks of therapy and medications to take care of , and when i'm finished , I plan on doing this hobby as much as I can. As far as the MX goes......i kind of have to stay involved with it , because it's what i do for a living. I manage and operate a really big indoor arenacross up here in NW oregon. I am done (after about 25+ years) of racing the "big bikes". I was running and racing a fully ported and modified Honda CRF 450 , and now........I am switching over to the "pit bikes"......a BBR 230 CRF play bike. That way , i can go slow , have fun and still teach all my classes to the kids. I'm staying in the sport , but i am going at it , at a totally different angle. This wreck was the closest i have ever felt to death. For a while there , when my left lung collapesed and was filling up with blood , my right lung was partially collapesed as well , and i thought i was going to dies. this expereince has changed my life......changed it for the better!!


Mike.........(and everyone else) thanks for all your replies and prayers. I'm going to make a full recovery , and who knows.....maybe i'll see you at the tracks one day..........RC tracks that is!! And Mike.......take care of yourself , and if you ever get the urge to head up north to check out an indoor track (just to watch) , look me up at "hindsightmx.com"




JEFFRO503

SlamtheNutta

i know the felling. like when i break an A arm or something on my truck and i have to look at it while tower hobbies sends me the parts. hope u get out well and ready to drive again.

sh0wtime

i feel your pain Jeffro
i too was a Moto-X rider for many years & 15 years after quitting still spend everyday in some level of pain[:@]
i also know about the punctured lung thing as in 86 i rode my trailbike under the back of a lorry at high speed & you do get wheezy before you start gurgling[:'(] that saw me almost lose the middle finger of my left hand & left me in a cast for 12 weeks!
i was playing Hockey at the time too & after dislocating my knee & breaking my Kneecap & fracturing C5 vertebra i stopped hockey only to foolishly ride again & tear my cruciate ligament & pop some cartlidge in the other knee[:'(]
if only i'd been clever enough to stop there but afterporting & tuning up a go-ped for somebody i was demonstrating how to pull a wheelie & went down real hard on my ***** which broke my tailbone & gave me another compression of the spine (thats 3 now) & i'm over an inch & a half shorter than i used to be

like you i found the best thing about racing RC is that you can get out of bed & still walk the next day ( well as good as somebody with 2 shot knees & clicking ankles can walk anyway) and that when you crash it doesn't hurt
the guy i travel to races with is also an ex Moto-X rider & he says exactly the same thing & its funny in the mornings when we're racing away as we both go limping & stumbling out of the Motel room like a couple of spazzys

we've both said we wished we found RC sooner & we're not gonna let our kids ride the bikes, worst thing i ever did[:'(]

hang in there buddy, it does get better but it will take time


Adam

Cory Ream

Well I should tell about my last ATV experience. I have an 02 Yamaha Banshee. I was in Tucson, Arizona the day before I was going to race the Western Worlds On-Road Championships. I figure I would ride my Banshee along some trails with the my friend and his family. I looked back to see where my friends were and the instant I looked back I hit a little whoop in the trail. I ended up flipping the quad and me about 9-10 times. I was unconcious for about 5 min. When I had awoken I took my helmet off to find out it had been almost broken in two. This was a HJC helmet not a cheap helmet. While I was in the emergency room the doctor looked at my helmet and said that might have been what my head looked like if I wasnt wearing a helmet. I never did get to rac in the Western Worlds. I was just glad to be alive, ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET.

sh0wtime

any update on your recovery Bro??

hope things are moving in the right direction

jkrustchinsky

My Feedback: (7)

sorry about the injuries man, i dont race mx but ive been racing bmx since i was 6, im at the top of my intermidiate class right now since i havnt raced in a long time, i ws in expert but i didnt race for more than 3 years and i had to fight with them just to let me be in intermidiate,

anyway nobody at our track comes on and does that crap, every now and then some 14 year old kid we dont know comes on and acts a fool and starts stuff but we give him a swirly

if that stuff woulda happened to me, i dont care how injured i am, i would wheel my self over to his room and beat the crap out of him on a stretcher