~Tale of a Fractured Skull~ by el Presidente

A true story, by el Presidente. Feedback is welcome! :-)

I was in a car crash when I was about 19 years old. I rolled my Toyota Corolla; it only had 12 inch tires on it. I was going around a corner at the beach when I started to slide. I corrected it but forgot about the counter-skid that comes after the first one. So I panicked. I rolled the car and went sliding down the beaches road on the roof of the car until I hit a chain-link fence and a large tree. I tried to get out of the car and was freaking so I was pounding my hands on the windows. Finally I calmed down, turned off the ignition and opened the door. I crawled to a house where I saw the lights on. Apparently I was at their back door. I was told through the door to come to the front door. I got back on my hands and knees and crawled around to the front because I was in shock and couldn't trust myself or balance. I stood at the front door and the guy had a shotgun pointed at my head through the window in the door. I told them to phone an ambulance because I was in a car crash. The guy hands the gun TO HIS WIFE, who was shaking like a leaf and SHE points the gun at my head while the guy checks out the scene. He comes back and says, there IS a car crash and you should hear the loud music coming from it!!! I had an eight-track tape of Neil Young's 'Harvest' in the cassette player and it had jolted full-blast with the crash. So to make a long story short, I finally got to the hospital and they x-rayed me, etc. I was off work a month. I had my scalp lifted from my head and nerve damage in both my hands and arms and a cut under my knee. They never detected a fractured skull. Until later...

I had trouble during that month off work, as you can well guess. I couldn't do anything with two arms in slings. And I had excruciating headaches.

Fast forward twelve years...

I went to the doctor because my hands were killing me. I know now it was partly due to carpal tunnel syndrome. I had radioactive dye injected in my body and I was scoped to look at my hands. The technician at the clinic asked me back for more images to be taken. Later, my doctor said, 'why didn't you tell me you had a fractured skull'? And I didn't know what he was talking about. The technician saw my old skull fracture and it had left a pretty large 'repair' where the skull bone had knit together again. So she thought she was looking at at TUMOUR. And she kept getting me to get images of my head... not my hands. So that was why. And that was why I had headaches, etc. I had a skull fracture up front and didn't know it and was never treated for it.

That's the story of el Presidente's skull fracture. So to this day that is why I am a big helmet fan. I wear a helmet skiing, skating, bicycle riding, motorcycle riding and horseback riding.