JP's Accident

Wednesday night Freddie got a phone call from Dustin, one of JP's friends saying that JP had crashed while riding and was in an ambulance on his way to Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa. A nurse was driving by and stopped to help. He was out cold and when he came to, had a seizure.The police came and blocked traffic and then the ambulance arrived. His friends drug his bike home, he was riding the fixed gear, and jumped in their car to follow the ambulance. Natalia and I walked in the door from bowling just as he was hanging up. Freddie left immediately for Santa Rosa while I stayed home with Natalia. When Freddie got to the hospital, two of JP's friends were with him in the ER. JP was admitted for the night and poor Freddie spent the night in an upright chair in his room and several hours freezing in the van (he took my car because his needed gas). None of us got much sleep that night. At 6:15 AM Thursday, Freddie called to say that they were going to transfer JP to Kaiser in Walnut Creek by ambulance, but before that, Kaiser wanted JP to have another CT scan, blood tests, and to be seen by a neurologist. By the time all that happened, I didn't think that the transfer would happen Thursday, so Natalia and I went to Santa Rosa after she got out of school. I took clothes and Freddie's bathroom kit for him because he had been wearing the same clothes for 48 hours. We got him a hotel room close to the hospital, so yesterday late afternoon he was able to shower and change clothes while Natalia and I held down the fort at the hospital. He stayed there last night so that one of us was close to JP. Natalia and I came home so that she could go to school today.

Now about JP. He doesn't remember the crash. His friends have told him that they only went for about a 10 minute ride. One block from the end of the ride, his front tire slid off the pavement and he apparently went over the handle bars. He has some major scrapes on his face. Until Thursday at about 2:00 PM, his vision was not good, but that has improved. His latest CT scan shows no internal bleeding or swelling. He has hearing loss in his left ear that is probably caused by fluid behind the eardrum. The doctor said that that would sort itself out. He is extremely dizzy and nauseous. The neurologist said that that could disappear in a week or last months. The doctors are also pretty sure that he has a cranial fracture, but there is nothing that can be done for that except letting it heal on its own.