Wysong
11-14-2008, 03:56 PM
289 290 291
Rider: Jason Wysong
My story: The following events in my life have led me down the path to becoming one of the founding members of the RiderDown Foundation.
March 27, 2002
After enjoying 30 years of motorcycle racing and practicing in my life I expected this day to be pretty much like any other with the exception of having my 8 year old son Jason with me to practice on his 50cc motorcycle. We arrived at the track around 4:00pm and unloaded the bikes and started to get ready to practice. By the time I had helped Jason with his bike and buckled his boots and such he was ready to go a minute or two before I was and was begging me to let him get started. I finally agreed because I was pretty close to being ready and there were only a couple of other little guys on the track at that time. Once I made that decision I noticed a couple of larger bikes take off so I quickly started my bike and grabbed my helmet and took off. Within a matter of seconds I was behind Jason and we were doing our normal routine of him riding as fast and smooth as he could while I stayed in 1st and 2nd gear right behind him. We did this for couple of laps and Jason was riding really well. We had been at this track before and he had it pretty dialed in.
I always felt good about the fact that I rode around the track with my son most of the time rather than standing on the sidelines and watching my son ride like most of the other Dads. Once I felt he was riding good and safe and the track wasn’t very crowded I would give him the ok signal and then takeoff for a hot lap at my speed which meant I would be back behind him within about 3 minutes.
On this day after about a minute of my hot lap I realized that in my rush to get on the track I didn’t strap down my helmet. I can’t remember ever not strapping down my helmet before in my life. So I pulled over and took off my gloves, strapped down my helmet and then put my gloves back on. By this time I would have expected Jason to have caught me so I started wondering if he went down. At this point I dropped into the infield of the track and started back tracking to find him. Within 15 seconds I saw him, he was laying on the backside of a jump, not moving and with nobody around him. I threw down my bike and was at his side within seconds. I could see that he was unconscious and not breathing. Right or wrong, I took off his helmet and started mouth to mouth resuscitation until he started breathing again. I stayed with him trying to revive him with prayers, tears and kisses until the ambulance arrived 15 minutes later followed by Life Flight which took my only son to the hospital.
It was at this time that I was told that an adult rider had landed on Jason and then returned to the face of the jump to stop other riders from hitting us while I was trying to help my son. I was told that I had apparently by the grace of God arrived at Jason’s side within about 20 seconds after the accident. I will always be haunted by the fact that if I had strapped my helmet correctly at the beginning as I usually do and completed a full lap it could have been an additional 3 to 4 minutes before Jason started breathing again and I could be living in a very different world right now. Thank you Lord.
March 31, 2002, 7:00pm
Jason is still unconscious and remains on life support. The doctors encouraging words are that he has made it past that first critical 72 hours.
April 5, 2002 12:33pm
Jason had a problem with low blood pressure. He is still not improving as fast as the doctors had hoped. As a result, this morning they did a more evasive procedure to drain some of the spinal fluid from his head. The procedure went well and his pressure came down.
April 8, 2002 1:08pm
This afternoon, the doctors have started to reduce Jason’s medication that is keeping Jason in the induced coma. We have been told to expect that there will most likely be occasions that we will have to increase the medications that were reduced as this is all a balancing act.
April 10, 2002 9:37am
He is now completely off the blood pressure medication and the barbiturates. It will still be a few days before he is awake. This morning, Jason made some small hand and eye movements.
Monday, April 15, 2002 9:39am
Yesterday evening, he gave David a thumbs up. Jason is still moving his legs and working on moving his arms. When he was awake over the weekend, he was breathing above the ventilator. There is a possibility that the ventilator will be removed today. A clamp is supposed to be placed on the drain in his brain today.
Saturday, April 20, 2002 9:43am
Jason is making progress. Yesterday, he was awake more than he was asleep. As of this morning, he has completed 4 six hour sessions of breathing without the ventilator.
Wednesday, April 24, 2002 10:52am
Jason was finally moved from PICU into a regular room this morning. He was able to point to the letters in his name from a chart. We are seeing more alertness.
Thursday, April 25, 2002 9:54am
Yesterday, David threw a wadded up paper towel at Jason, then Jason picked it up and threw it back at him. He is starting to smile some and there is laughter in his eyes. This morning, he tried to use his voice to say Dad. This is the first time he has tried to speak. He also tried to wave to his Mom.
Monday, April 29, 2002 7:30pm
Jason was successfully transferred to the rehab hospital this morning
It’s at this point, a little over a month after the accident I was forced to come out of the fog of my son’s life changing situation and deal with the reality of working through the issues of the day.
The rehab hospital was unwilling to accept Jason for rehab treatment without an immediate payment of a very large sum of money to cover the 6 weeks of treatment. I made the mistake of being caught between insurance policies because I cancelled the policy by refusing to accept the last of several increases due to the fact that I had never even used our insurance. It was a very big mistake. I have my real estate investments, but I normally only have a few thousand dollars in cash at any one time. Without early rehab Jason did not have a chance for a full recovery. I put my properties on the market for sale at fire sale prices knowing that they still would not solve the immediate problem. Then support came from a very unexpected source, Pat Forbes and his website KTMTalk.com, who was just an acquaintance had setup a fund raiser for Jason including a website and promoted a benefit race. I could not believe the support that came from all over the world. By the day that Jason needed to go into the rehab hospital, Pat had raised over $20,000 which I was now able to give to the rehab hospital. Over the next few months Pat had raised at total amount of approximately $40,000. This was absolutely a life saver for our family, but with bills of over $400,000 at that point, I still had some issues to deal with to insure the financial survival of my family.
Now going forward to the 3 year anniversary of Jason’s accident, Jason is 90 percent recovered both mentally and physically with a full recovery expected by me within the next few years. We are also now 100 percent out of debt in regard to the medical bills associated with Jason’s accident and I will be posting some guidelines showing the process that I used to reach this position. Getting through this 3 year period has taught me so much about our ability as human beings to solve problems when the darkest of days have taken over our lives because of the near loss of a loved one. There is also light at the end of the tunnel when dealing with the overwhelming cost of the ambulance, life flight, hospitals, rehab hospitals, doctors, nurses, lawyers and creditors, as long as you face everybody head on and never hide. This experience has also introduced me to a community of motorcycle riders and their families that truly are some of the finest people I have ever known. If I were to add the prayers and thoughts from around the world which we received at Jason’s website in KTMTalk.com it would take several hours to complete the reading.
It is because of all this that I have been driven for the last 2 years to be part of a foundation which helps injured riders and their families. As I began to develop strong relationships with fellow members of the riding community throughout the country, such as Pat Forbes, Bruce Vermeulen, Joe Frontiero and Art Jurado, the RiderDown Foundation was born. A little bit of support from a lot of good people and sponsors can go a long way towards helping many injured riders and their families in the sport we love. Together we can make a difference.
J. David Wysong - Jason’s Dad
Rider: Jason Wysong
My story: The following events in my life have led me down the path to becoming one of the founding members of the RiderDown Foundation.
March 27, 2002
After enjoying 30 years of motorcycle racing and practicing in my life I expected this day to be pretty much like any other with the exception of having my 8 year old son Jason with me to practice on his 50cc motorcycle. We arrived at the track around 4:00pm and unloaded the bikes and started to get ready to practice. By the time I had helped Jason with his bike and buckled his boots and such he was ready to go a minute or two before I was and was begging me to let him get started. I finally agreed because I was pretty close to being ready and there were only a couple of other little guys on the track at that time. Once I made that decision I noticed a couple of larger bikes take off so I quickly started my bike and grabbed my helmet and took off. Within a matter of seconds I was behind Jason and we were doing our normal routine of him riding as fast and smooth as he could while I stayed in 1st and 2nd gear right behind him. We did this for couple of laps and Jason was riding really well. We had been at this track before and he had it pretty dialed in.
I always felt good about the fact that I rode around the track with my son most of the time rather than standing on the sidelines and watching my son ride like most of the other Dads. Once I felt he was riding good and safe and the track wasn’t very crowded I would give him the ok signal and then takeoff for a hot lap at my speed which meant I would be back behind him within about 3 minutes.
On this day after about a minute of my hot lap I realized that in my rush to get on the track I didn’t strap down my helmet. I can’t remember ever not strapping down my helmet before in my life. So I pulled over and took off my gloves, strapped down my helmet and then put my gloves back on. By this time I would have expected Jason to have caught me so I started wondering if he went down. At this point I dropped into the infield of the track and started back tracking to find him. Within 15 seconds I saw him, he was laying on the backside of a jump, not moving and with nobody around him. I threw down my bike and was at his side within seconds. I could see that he was unconscious and not breathing. Right or wrong, I took off his helmet and started mouth to mouth resuscitation until he started breathing again. I stayed with him trying to revive him with prayers, tears and kisses until the ambulance arrived 15 minutes later followed by Life Flight which took my only son to the hospital.
It was at this time that I was told that an adult rider had landed on Jason and then returned to the face of the jump to stop other riders from hitting us while I was trying to help my son. I was told that I had apparently by the grace of God arrived at Jason’s side within about 20 seconds after the accident. I will always be haunted by the fact that if I had strapped my helmet correctly at the beginning as I usually do and completed a full lap it could have been an additional 3 to 4 minutes before Jason started breathing again and I could be living in a very different world right now. Thank you Lord.
March 31, 2002, 7:00pm
Jason is still unconscious and remains on life support. The doctors encouraging words are that he has made it past that first critical 72 hours.
April 5, 2002 12:33pm
Jason had a problem with low blood pressure. He is still not improving as fast as the doctors had hoped. As a result, this morning they did a more evasive procedure to drain some of the spinal fluid from his head. The procedure went well and his pressure came down.
April 8, 2002 1:08pm
This afternoon, the doctors have started to reduce Jason’s medication that is keeping Jason in the induced coma. We have been told to expect that there will most likely be occasions that we will have to increase the medications that were reduced as this is all a balancing act.
April 10, 2002 9:37am
He is now completely off the blood pressure medication and the barbiturates. It will still be a few days before he is awake. This morning, Jason made some small hand and eye movements.
Monday, April 15, 2002 9:39am
Yesterday evening, he gave David a thumbs up. Jason is still moving his legs and working on moving his arms. When he was awake over the weekend, he was breathing above the ventilator. There is a possibility that the ventilator will be removed today. A clamp is supposed to be placed on the drain in his brain today.
Saturday, April 20, 2002 9:43am
Jason is making progress. Yesterday, he was awake more than he was asleep. As of this morning, he has completed 4 six hour sessions of breathing without the ventilator.
Wednesday, April 24, 2002 10:52am
Jason was finally moved from PICU into a regular room this morning. He was able to point to the letters in his name from a chart. We are seeing more alertness.
Thursday, April 25, 2002 9:54am
Yesterday, David threw a wadded up paper towel at Jason, then Jason picked it up and threw it back at him. He is starting to smile some and there is laughter in his eyes. This morning, he tried to use his voice to say Dad. This is the first time he has tried to speak. He also tried to wave to his Mom.
Monday, April 29, 2002 7:30pm
Jason was successfully transferred to the rehab hospital this morning
It’s at this point, a little over a month after the accident I was forced to come out of the fog of my son’s life changing situation and deal with the reality of working through the issues of the day.
The rehab hospital was unwilling to accept Jason for rehab treatment without an immediate payment of a very large sum of money to cover the 6 weeks of treatment. I made the mistake of being caught between insurance policies because I cancelled the policy by refusing to accept the last of several increases due to the fact that I had never even used our insurance. It was a very big mistake. I have my real estate investments, but I normally only have a few thousand dollars in cash at any one time. Without early rehab Jason did not have a chance for a full recovery. I put my properties on the market for sale at fire sale prices knowing that they still would not solve the immediate problem. Then support came from a very unexpected source, Pat Forbes and his website KTMTalk.com, who was just an acquaintance had setup a fund raiser for Jason including a website and promoted a benefit race. I could not believe the support that came from all over the world. By the day that Jason needed to go into the rehab hospital, Pat had raised over $20,000 which I was now able to give to the rehab hospital. Over the next few months Pat had raised at total amount of approximately $40,000. This was absolutely a life saver for our family, but with bills of over $400,000 at that point, I still had some issues to deal with to insure the financial survival of my family.
Now going forward to the 3 year anniversary of Jason’s accident, Jason is 90 percent recovered both mentally and physically with a full recovery expected by me within the next few years. We are also now 100 percent out of debt in regard to the medical bills associated with Jason’s accident and I will be posting some guidelines showing the process that I used to reach this position. Getting through this 3 year period has taught me so much about our ability as human beings to solve problems when the darkest of days have taken over our lives because of the near loss of a loved one. There is also light at the end of the tunnel when dealing with the overwhelming cost of the ambulance, life flight, hospitals, rehab hospitals, doctors, nurses, lawyers and creditors, as long as you face everybody head on and never hide. This experience has also introduced me to a community of motorcycle riders and their families that truly are some of the finest people I have ever known. If I were to add the prayers and thoughts from around the world which we received at Jason’s website in KTMTalk.com it would take several hours to complete the reading.
It is because of all this that I have been driven for the last 2 years to be part of a foundation which helps injured riders and their families. As I began to develop strong relationships with fellow members of the riding community throughout the country, such as Pat Forbes, Bruce Vermeulen, Joe Frontiero and Art Jurado, the RiderDown Foundation was born. A little bit of support from a lot of good people and sponsors can go a long way towards helping many injured riders and their families in the sport we love. Together we can make a difference.
J. David Wysong - Jason’s Dad