Mine is a bit different from what's been shared thus far. Kinda more of a took-a-bullet-for-someone story. Huge wall of text, but hopefully it's an interesting story.
Backstory
When I was young -- between the ages of 7 and 8 -- my brother and I used to fuck around when we were bored. He was only 6 years older than me, but he was huge for his age. Probably already like 5'11/6'0 and 200 lbs at least. Anyway, we had a one of those mobile basketball hoops like this that was standard 10 feet. My brother was tall and strong enough to tilt the entire thing until it was almost parallel with the ground. I was small enough that he could lift me up, so naturally we figured I would grab on and he would jump on the back and hoist me up.
Now, we had only done this a few times. Each time I would rattle around pretty violently once I reached the top, but I managed to hang on. I was young, so it never occurred to me that one could hurt their self doing this...
One day we're hanging out with some of our best friends in our driveway. Somehow we start talking about the schtick we do, and my brother tries to get my best friend (same age and size as me) to try it. Now as an 8 year old kid, this thing is almost 3x our height in size. It's pretty intimidating. Understandably, my friend was hesitant. But, you know, peer pressure and all, he didn't want to say 'no'. All he could do is say 'uh' and act kind of shy. I noticed this and was like, 'Hey, I'll do it. He's never done it before, so if he sees what it's like he'll know what to do.'
So here comes the saving part.
Here's what happened next. We set everything up, everyone surrounds the hoop like it's a fucking free throw at a game. I grab on, my brother jumps on the back and I start to go up and...
Nothing.
Just black.
You're probably like, 'Well what the fuck does that mean, what happened?' First, you should watch this as to-date it is the only thing even remotely close to what happened. The situation is almost identical, except for a few key factors. First, my brother was probably 3x the weight and almost a foot taller than the kid in the video jumping on the back in the video. Second, the kid in this video was even luckier than I was. That being said, there's a good chance he's paralyzed right now. I would love to know what happened to him. But I digress.
What happened to me was similar to what happened in the aforementioned video, but let me describe the differences through what happened. The last thing that I remember is being almost halfway to the top. What I know of what happened I know only from what I've been told by those who saw it. For whatever reason, my brother jumped and pulled on it a little harder that day. Maybe it was just excitement from being around friends and showing them something we thought was cool. Either way, the violent jolt once it reached the top caused by fingers to slip and all of that momentum catapulted me forehead-first into the rim (I believe, or some part of the upper goal) and then I fell straight onto my back. However, unlike the kid in the above video, after I landed on my back my head whipped backwards onto the concrete. The kid in the video was fortunate in that he never once hit his head. Miraculously he managed to not whip his head back, either. That being said, he definitely broke his spine.
I have to give tell this next part from two perspectives: those who were aware of what was going on, and me.
Others: As soon as I hit the ground everyone was like, 'Shit.' I have no idea what my reaction was, but I think I was initially out cold. So my brother scooped me up (TERRIBLE IDEA, never do this to someone with a spine injury as moving them can cause more damage; fortunately I don't believe this did any further damage to me) and raced inside to my parents and my friend's parents. I had already been picked up and we lived in a big city, so my dad decided to just drive me to the hospital himself. They put me in the car and took off.
I eventually came to in the car, and according to my mom I just started flailing my arms around like crazy yelling, 'I can't see! I can't see!' I did this for a short time but quickly ran out of energy and just began vomiting a lot. Apparently throughout this event I looked 'as white as a ghost' and started to get cold. I believe it was a shortly before we turned into the hospital that I then went unconscious. As you can imagine, my mother was terrified that I was dying at this point. I mean, the signs at the time would lead you to suspect such, and I'm sure that at this moment I was kissing death's door. They checked me into the hospital with a broken back, severe whiplash, and a traumatic brain injury; all while I had slipped into a coma.
Mine: So, to this day I still have absolutely no recollection of what was going on during this time. Like I said, the last thing I remember is being on my way up on the hoop. This is a result of post-traumatic amnesia -- something that frequently follows brain injuries. Even though I would be reactive to some degree, I was not forming memories -- kind of like a blackout when drinking.
Once I entered the hospital I was in and out of a coma. I have a poor timeline to reference my personal experience from when I was admitted to the hospital. But here's what I do remember. I first had a spec of awareness at some point early in my stay. Probably within the first few hours. I just remember being on a gurney with essentially body paralysis. This could've been terrifying, but I was so confused, weak, and just out of it in general that I could barely string together thoughts. It was like... Just hearing fuzzed noise and gaining the most basic sense of awareness. After a little bit I tried to string together thoughts, but I just couldn't. It was extremely difficult just trying to think. This experience lasted for maybe a whole minute or two -- not long at all -- before I slipped back into a coma. I would have one other experience like this before I finally came out of it. Once while I was changing hospitals (I had to switch a couple of times apparently so that they could find someone to treat me). I just had a brief moment of awareness of getting into an ambulance and that's it.
I ended up being in a coma for about 2-3 days. I was apparently temporarily blinded, but my vision came back soon after I came out of the coma. Had extreme light sensitivity, though. Light and even the slightest bit of noise just made me ill to my stomach. Initially had retrograde amnesia and couldn't remember the most basic of things. It took a few months to regain a good amount of my memories. Basic stuff came back quicker, but some memories took even over a year to come back. Some are probably lost forever.
Anyway, apparently the doctor said that it was a miracle case for two reasons: 1) Had I injured my back literally just a hair further (I believe in either direction, up or down) I would have severed something and been paralyzed, and 2) I had no brain swelling, bleeding, or an open wound in my head which would've been typically seen. Overall I racked my brain pretty good. There was the hit at the top of the goal, and then again on the concrete. In addition, each time I hit my head there as enough force to cause my brain to hit the opposite side of my skull (what's known as a coup contrecoup injury).
Overall, I ended up in the hospital for two weeks and then out of school for several months. It wasn't known at the time, but TBI as a child has a greater impact on your life than if the injury happened as an adult. It ended up being a huge challenge to overcome and is one that I still struggle with to this day. But that's a story for another time.
So, to answer the question at hand: Had my friend gone up instead of me, the same would have likely happened to him. It could've been even worse. Sure everything might not have gone as badly, but the video I posted leads me to believe that this is an easy way to injure yourself. I was a pretty durable kid. Had I not, the damage would have been even worse. Like I said, I felt like I was kissing death's door.
tl;dr: Watch the video. It's only 40 seconds long. Essentially the same thing happened but much much worse. I decided to do it instead of my friend and ended up with a severe traumatic brain injury and broken back from an injury that should have killed me.
Short rant about traumatic brain injuries: So little is known about TBI because it doesn't get much funding. Yet, it affects a great amount of people and prominent members of society. TBI is a frequent issue with veterans, professional football/other sports players, etc. More studies are starting to come out now, but there's still such little awareness about it. Like seriously, hardly anyone is aware that this is a big deal. It's referred to as an "invisible disease" because it's really difficult to notice its effects. It can start out subtle and then increase in intensity gradually over time (like it did with me). It can take seemingly functional and previously thriving individuals and make them useless. It presents some huge cognitive obstacles and there needs to be more awareness and research. Seriously. Your life and potential gets stripped away from you. Next thing you know you spend the rest of your life struggling with substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and suicide as a result of your little-known cognitive issues. It can mess with how you process information, emotions, communicate, etc. The worst part is that the only way to even begin to get better is to describe your symptoms -- which are already vague and the condition makes it difficult to express thoughts to begin with. /rant
On a related note, it's almost exactly 15 years to the day that this incident took place. So happy anniversary to me I guess.
