Examiner Resurrection: Broken Wings: When A Biker Goes Down Hard – Part 2
Randy and Joan Savely
Two weeks after Randy Savely lost his left leg below the knee in a car/motorcycle accident, his wife Joan and her son Vince were awakened by crashing noises. Racing to see what happened, they found Randy laying at the bottom of the stairs with two garbage bags beside him. He had been carrying one bag in each hand, trying to navigate the stairs with his crutches, and had fallen.
On one hand she was relieved that he was not badly hurt or bleeding from his injured leg, but on the other hand, “I wanted to kill him.”
“Leave those trash bags where they are, I’ll take care of them,” he told Joan and Vince. “This trash will not get the best of me.”
The road to recovery
The ramifications of losing a leg are not all as obvious as climbing stairs with crutches.
“You don’t realize the limitations a prosthesis presents,” says Joan. “He can’t crawl under the car to change the oil like he used to. He can’t get up on the roof to replace shingles the wind blew off. He wears out so much more quickly that we have to schedule things and not try to do them during the week when he’s tired out from work. It’s not that he can’t do some things, it’s just that he’ll be worn out for a couple days afterward, so we plan those things for the weekend.”
Joan explains that amputees require as much as 50 percent more oxygen than before, which is where the exhaustion comes from. Randy’s leg is also permanently weakened, and there are limits to how much he can lift.
Dealing with the artifical leg, the prosthesis, has its own issues. Randy has different feet for different functions, and “my walking foot is spring-loaded, and pushes me into the next step. I’m fortunate to have my knee and be able to do what I can.”
Every time Randy changes shoes he must readjust the prosthesis to compensate for different heel heights, using shims.
“Each morning I spend 45 minutes walking around getting the shims just right. I take them with me everywhere I go and adjust things several times a day.”
Physical adjustments were not the only issue the family had to deal with, and the friends who gathered in support at the hospital continued to show their concern afterward.
“They brought an enormous amount of food, and raised a lot of money,” says Joan. “They made sure we didn’t just fold up, made sure I was still functioning on the planet, staying engaged.”
Friends came by frequently and took them boating and camping. “We went tent camping, and both air mattresses went flat so we slept in the car,” Randy laughs. “I’m going to try this year to get out bird hunting.”
Support came from all directions. When Joan’s car broke down her boss handed her the keys to his Hummer and told her to just drive it until her car was fixed. Then a friend, Tim, took her car for repair, and when it was ready told her where to go to pick it up. When she asked how much the repairs would cost the folks at the shop told her “It’s paid for” and would not tell her by whom. She finally learned that Tim and another friend had covered it.
Although Randy’s medical care was covered by health insurance, he did not have disability coverage and the loss of income was crippling. Told by the doctors that it could be a year before Randy would walk, they knew they could not make their house payments. They informed the mortgage company of the situation and went into foreclosure. Ultimately they also filed for bankruptcy.
Losing the house wasn’t all negative. It had four levels, which made things pretty hard for Randy with all those stairs. The rental they moved into is all on one floor. And when the day to move arrived, friends in eight pick-ups and trailers showed up and “We made it all in one trip. We started at 8 a.m. and were done by 2 p.m.”
Part 1 – The Accident and the Hospital
Part 3 – Back in the Saddle
Biker Quote for Today
Bikes are like wives; if it ain’t yours don’t touch it.
Tags: randy run
