It Could Happen to You — PART TWO

As a review of PART ONE of the story, I was miraculously selected to attend Air Command and Staff College (ACSC), an Air Force Professional Military Education school, located at Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama. I was chosen as a Seminar Leader babysitting 12–13 other officers making sure they were at the right place, at the right time, and didn’t fall asleep during lectures. Two of my classmates asked me to go mountain biking and I had to borrow an ill-fitting bike for the ride.

The day of the scheduled ride, I arrived at the trailhead early to take a couple of quick turns on the bike. My seat adjustments worked fine. The bike was comfortable enough except for one thing: stirrups! If you’ve never been on a mountain bike, apparently some mountain bikes have stirrups to help keep the rider’s feet on the pedals. In the case of my bike, the stirrups were like little cages into which you would stick your toes. I couldn’t stand them, so I flipped my pedals upside down.

Soon enough, my classmates arrived and we began preparations for the ride in earnest. We all had Camelback’s so we could stay hydrated in the Alabama sun. We all had helmets — SAFETY FIRST. The final checklist item was a briefing by one of my classmates who had ridden the trail the previous weekend. The briefing started out normal enough with my classmate talking about how it was a good trail, some ups and downs, but mostly pretty flat. Then, he made an ominous admission. He said there were parts of the trail which “scared him”. But, he promised he would let us know well enough ahead of time so we could decide whether we wanted to walk our bikes through the “scary parts”. So, off we went.

As there were three of us, we would take turns: one in the lead, one in the middle, and one in trail. That way each of us had an opportunity to set the pace. Things proceeded along without incident for a few miles. At that particular point I found myself in the trail position. We were riding through the woods on a trail that was at the most 4 foot wide. There was foliage, trees, and the occasional fallen branch right near the trail. It was one of those fallen branches which caused a problem.

You remember those stirrups, right? I had turned my pedals upside down which made those stirrups little metal baskets just ready to catch a fallen branch in its parts. Boom! A branch got caught in my stirrups and knocked me to the ground. My friends either did not know I had fallen or figured I would just catch up so they didn’t stop. It took me a couple of minutes to un-ass myself and I was soon huffing and puffing trying to catch up to my friends.

After riding a couple of minutes I found myself at the top of a hill. The trail going down the hill and up the other side was not smooth. The roots of the trees on either side of the trail actually crossed the trail and formed little steps going down its length. As I stood there I thought to myself “This looks pretty damn scary to me”. But, at the same time, I thought if my friends had walked their bikes, I would be able to see them on the other side. I didn’t. That made me think they must not have walked their bikes and that they had ridden down the hill and over the steps.

As I contemplated those thoughts, another biker road down the other side of the hill and up mine. He thanked me as he passed as I actually had to get off the trail to give him room to go by. In my mind, I thought “Well, if he can do it, I can do it”. With my ego leading the way, I started down the hill.

Things were moving rather quickly. Even though I was riding my brake most of the way, I kept picking up speed. I should’ve laid my bike down and aborted things; but, I didn’t. The further down I rode, the faster I was moving. Suddenly, my front wheel caught in one of the ruts formed by the tree roots. It stopped moving. The rear wheel didn’t as I found myself flying over the handlebars.

I hit the ground initially with my neck and I felt a sharp pain. I didn’t know whether I had landed on a tree, a rock, or a tree root. I just knew something caused my neck to hurt. But, I didn’t stop moving. I kept rolling down the hill until I reached the bottom. At which point, I found myself sitting upright in about 6 inches of water. I knew right away something was wrong because I didn’t feel wet. Then I tried to move my arms. They didn’t work. Panicked thoughts started racing through my brain as I realized what may have happened.

My friends, who I found out later did not walk their bikes, were actually standing at the top of the hill on the other side and saw the whole accident. They came running to my aid and, as they approached, I said to my friend “DJ, I can’t move my arms or legs and I’m not kidding”. I didn’t want him to think I was trying to be funny.

We all had cell phones and an ambulance was soon on its way. DJ phoned the Air Force Base and spoke to someone at the Command Post. He asked them to contact our Squadron Commander and to tell him “Major Wilson has been in an accident and it’s life or death.” I said “DJ, I can’t move my arms or legs. I’m not dying here”. That time I WAS trying to be funny. DJ didn’t laugh.

Soon, two other bikers stopped to see if they could lend assistance. One guy was an off-duty EMT. He knew what to do and what not to do. It was probably a good thing he showed up because it wasn’t long after that I began to lose the ability to hold up my head. It would snap forward or snap back. The EMT cut my Camelback off of me, sat down in the mud puddle behind me, and cupped my head with his hands so it would not move. If he hadn’t been there to do that, I don’t know what might’ve happened. I might not be writing this story today.

But he was so I am.

After the ambulance arrived, it took a few minutes to get loaded for the ride to the hospital. Luckily, my accident occurred relatively near the road, so they didn’t have to carry me on the backboard very far. Approximately 45 minutes later, we arrived at the hospital.

I remember being looked over by several doctors and attended to by many nurses during those first few hours there. I also remember being subjected to an MRI and at least two CAT scans. I was resting comfortably enough that I tried joking with the nurses. They would smile; but, would avoid eye contact for very long. I didn’t yet comprehend how my life had just radically changed because I decided to try and ride down a hill I shouldn’t have to satisfy my ego.

I have no memory of the next four days. When I woke up on Friday, I discovered the doctors confirmed I had a spinal cord injury and had performed a tracheotomy. That made a hole in my throat into which they had placed a plastic cannula that was attached to a breathing vent. I could feel the breathing vent push air in and out of my lungs. It had a strange almost musical rhythm to it. Little did I know I would be listing to that song for the next 10 months.

My mom and my sister had arrived from Michigan to be with me days beforehand. It was good to see them; but, it wasn’t good that my mother had to see me that way. The scared look on her face made me feel really bad. To this day I don’t know which was worse: sustaining the injury or putting my mom through the ordeal.

The decision was made to move me to the VA facility in Cleveland Ohio for my long-term recovery. That meant transfer by air which had to be arranged. Unfortunately, they would just get an aircraft scheduled and I would spike a fever or develop an infection which would necessitate canceling the transfer. Several birds came for me and left without me because there were others who needed transportation and they had to move to new locations.

When the day finally arrived where my health and aircraft availability meshed, I was driven by ambulance to the Air Force Base to meet the plane. As I exited the ambulance, I heard the distinct sound of formation commands echoing through the air. I found out later the whole ACSC school was on the flight line in formation. When I entered the plane, the school let loose with a roar and started clapping and calling my name. My mom later told me it brought her to tears. To be honest, I’m getting a little weepy-eyed myself just typing it here.

My arrival in Cleveland was the start of a nine-month effort to wean myself off of the breathing vent and begin to breathe on my own again. It was a slow process. Being on the vent meant I could not eat normally. They had put a feeding tube directly into my stomach when I was hospitalized in Montgomery. They fed me the same thing that they feed to babies. Let me tell you, that stuff is nasty. Sometimes when they would feed me the stuff would come up my stomach into my throat. Not fun. I guess I could recommend it if you want to lose weight. I lost over 100 pounds during those nine months.

Over the course of a person’s life, they have many Red Letter Days. Those are the important, defining days of our lives. The first time your parents leave you alone, when you learn to ride a bike for the first time, your first date, your first kiss, etc. those are all Red Letter Days. Being taken off the breathing vent was an AMAZING Red Letter Day. I still had to have the cannula removed and pass several swallowing tests before I could eat and drink normally. Well, normally now being defined as someone else helping me eat and drink. Most importantly, I was nearing the date I would be able to return home. It would come barely 3 months later.

The day I would leave the hospital finally came approximately one year after I had arrived at the Cleveland VA. My sister was nice enough to take me in and let me live with her. So, I made the 4 ½ hour trip to my new home and adjusted to life as a quadriplegic out of the hospital.

Technology is a wonderful thing. If I could only watch TV and movies all day, every day, I would be crazier than I am. Luckily, voice-recognition software gave me the ability to control a computer with my voice. Pretty much anything I could do on a computer before my accident the voice-recognition software would allow me to do now. That gave me the freedom to explore the Internet and keep my mind engaged.

I became very political. I would find myself commenting on various websites and blogs about the issues of the day. Many times it had to do with how things related to the military; but, not every time. I’ve always been the opinionated type. Usually, that wasn’t something I would share with folks unless asked. Becoming paralyzed seemed to flip a switch in my brain. I needed to share my opinion whether others wanted to hear it or not. I don’t think I would purposely look for sites or articles with which I disagreed in order to opine. It just seemed to work out that way. I was often getting heated in my opinions and that was taking a toll on my already shaky health. I needed a different outlet where I could focus my time.

Way back in 1990, I discovered that newfangled invention called the Internet. I had my big desktop, my 9600 baud modem, and a service called Prodigy. As I remember it, Prodigy was many different services in one. The service that immediately caught my eye was the stock trader. I had always wanted to dabble in the stock market and here I was going to be able to do it from the comfort of my apartment and without dealing with a pushy stockbroker.

Golf was a big part of my weekend mornings and one fateful Saturday morning I was golfing with Billy from the Civil Engineering Squadron. Billy was a Technical Sergeant who, while having been in the Air Force for several years, didn’t make much more than I as a brand-new Second Lieutenant. But, there in Billy’s golf bag was a brand-new set of Ping golf clubs.

I knew those golf clubs had to set him back a pretty penny Technical Sergeants with a family usually could not afford. So I asked him how he could afford them. He said “Sir, I discovered a gold mine a few weeks back. I’ve been trading a stock online and it’s been fabulous.” I said “You’ve been trading stocks? Wow. That’s great.” He corrected me “Not STOCKS. A stock”.

He went on to explain that he knew a guy, who knew a guy, who put him onto this particular stock. Now, I don’t know who this “guy” was or what he knew about trading stocks, but, his strategy was working. Billy explained the stock was from a bank in Texas. It fluctuated, like clockwork, between $.75 and $1 per share every week. Billy had been buying at $.75 per share and selling at $1 per share for months. He would cash out half his profit each week and reinvest the rest into buying a larger stake the next week. Doing so was how Billy was able to afford the new Ping golf clubs as well as helping his family out financially overall.

Armed with this information from my new “Stock Advisor”, I set out to conquer stock trading through Prodigy. I established my stock trading account, funded it with a whopping $250, and placed my first trade. A few days later, I sold it for my $.25 per share profit just like Billy had predicted.

Over the next eight weeks, I placed trade, after trade, after trade that always returned the promised results. I followed Billy’s formula, except I reinvested ALL of my profit instead of pulling out half. After my sixth trade, I had approximately $625 in my stock trading account. That’s when the bank unexpectedly traded at $1.25 per share for a couple of weeks straight.

I didn’t see my “Stock Advisor” at the golf course for a couple of weeks and I was getting anxious waiting for the stock to come back down to $1 per share. That’s when, with my newfound “expertise” in stock trading, I stumbled across something called “selling short”. Selling short is when the brokerage “loans you” shares of stock and you sell them at what you hope to be at a high price and then you “buy” shares of stock to cover that trade and repay the brokerage when the stock price goes down. I figured selling short at $1.25 per share and then “buying to cover” when it INEVITABLY came down to $.75 a share would net me a $.50 per share profit instead of $.25 per share. Foolproof, right?

WRONG! I had a very pointed message from the brokerage company that my “short sale” required me to have five times the stock value in my brokerage account in case the price of the stock went up from where I sold it. I had four days to deposit the required amount or they would liquidate my account.

Well, I didn’t have $3000 to add to my brokerage account. The stock had to come down, didn’t it? It had been doing so for months longer than I had been trading it. So, I waited. And I waited. And I waited. Finally, my due date was upon me and the stock was still stuck at $1.25 per share. So, I bought at the same price I sold meaning I was out the fees I paid on both actions.

Years later when I was looking for something to occupy my time after my spinal cord accident what I discovered was Internet Marketing.

I hope to share my journey and recommendations on Internet Marketing courses, tools, strategies, and other issues here in this forum. While the freak accident that left me paralyzed could happen to you, that doesn’t mean you have to go through the same experience before trying Internet Marketing.

If you’re interested in the topic, please check back often and comment on what you see here.