I'm lucky to be alive

While umpiring a high school baseball game this afternoon, I got hit in the head by a line drive.

I'm lucky to be alive; could have easily killed me. In the milliseconds as it came off the bat, I knew it was going to come close to me. I was standing about 15 feet behind and to the right of the pitcher. If the ball was going 100 mph, it covered the 75 feet to me in less than half a second.

I started to turn and drop; I got my head down enough that, instead of hitting me in the face, it hit my forehead. I never lost consciousness as I went to me hands and knees, although blackness started to creep into my vision. I worked hard to mentally fight off the darkness. Coaches were there in seconds.

Thankfully, a paramedic had just arrived to watch the game. She had her kit with her. Not much she could do but stop the bleeding -- and there was a lot!

My oldest son happened to be working nearby, so he came to the field, then drove me to the hospital, which -- hindsight being 20/20, was stupid; should have called an ambulance. I got right into the ER. Nothing like a head wound or chest pains to eliminate time in the waiting room!

CT scan shows nothing, but as we know, a traumatic brain injury can take a while to manifest itself. Family is watching for signs of problems.

The wound, about 3 inches that had to be closed, took 12 stitches. There's another 2 inches of less severe cuts. Most of my scalp has swelling. I'm sure the bruise will be awesome. (Pictures will follow if anything good develops.)

My partner said the hit sounded like an explosion; he thought I was dead. Oddly, the pain was not bad; on a scale of 1-10, it was a 4 when it happened, by the time we got to the hospital it was a 2. My knee hurts worse than my head does.

Anyway, like we always hear, the end can come at any time, so be sure to hug your loved ones and have your personal accounts (and I don't mean monetary) settled each day.

Wow! glad your okay.

Lee

Good wishes to you, Newsman.

Ouch, good thing you ducked.

Great job on reacting. Now on to other business....Blast do not take this as a challenge

BTW, nice picture.

Might I suggest a helmet.

As far as whacks to the can goes that is a dandy. Gonna leave a mark you can show the grand kids. Mighta been that time you got hit with a baseball. Or might be the time you were chased by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Grand kids all think grandpa rode a dinosaur so you might as well pull their leg a bit.

Be sure to follow the advice of the neurologist and docs. Take it easy for a time. And watch out for baseballs. Might want to wear a helmet. I lean toward a broad-brimmed lineman's helmet, the brim helps with the Florida sun, but you might go with a King Leonadas for meetings and formal affairs:

http://www.reelcollectibles.co.nz/images/300/300_leonidas_helmet_neca.jpg

Or, for all round protection, for poker, and when your feeling a bit withdrawn:

http://www.walyou.com/blog/2009/01/02/limited-edition-iron-man-helmet-replica/

When you're feeling mean. Great for firing employees and negotiating with vendors:

http://nexus404.com/Blog/2008/03/03/conc...e-modern-vader/

OUCH, that must have hurt.

I took a bad hit in the head a year ago during a snowmobile accident and am still dealing with the effects. A serious brain injury takes a long time to heal completely.

Take care,

Mike

Art, I like the Iron Man Replica the best. And I could wear it when I work behind the plate. Might be hot, though, in summer.

Swamp Donkey, believe me, I'm not going to be doing anything strenuous for a while. The CT scan showed nothing (leaving myself WIDE OPEN for jokes, so go right ahead) but that doesn't mean I'm out of the woods.

The ER staff really wasn't that concerned, which surprised me. So, after reading the paperwork they sent home, I got online and looked up additional information. I'm now sitting around waiting for something to happen. Hopefully, it a long and nonproductive wait.

Good reflexes.

So, I now need to ask, how many times have rehearsed this in your head? I'm willing to bet you've thought about it a few times.

As for helmets... yeah, an Iron Man helmet would limit your visability a lot, hard to see what's going on. Although, the ump is usually blind.

Good to see you have a sense of humor Newsman. I never know how people will take a friendly joke.

Humor is, as I understand it, a higher level brain function that is often altered if the brain is damaged. Which suggests that the external damage may be the worse of it. A very good thing.

I imagine the ER staff wasn't too concerned, because compared to some of the patients they see, yours must have been a routine grounder, so to speak.

Good luck.

My uncle was hit by a bus last year and definitely isn´t the man he used to be. For example, the work he once did on his own now has to be done by 3 people and he can´t read sheet music as quickly as he used to.

Ironraven, I can't really say that I've rehearsed that situation. I guess my reflexes come from simply learning to read the baseball off the bat; after seeing thousands of hits it becomes easy to know where the ball is going. As soon as the batter contacted the ball, I knew the ball was going to come close to me.

Art, this incident opens me to all sorts of jokes. A few exmaples: Maybe it knocked some sense into you; did the CT scan proved you don't have a brain?; it couldn't have hurt your vision, you're already blind. If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we're taking ourselves too seriously.

Joost, sorry to hear about your uncle; my dad got hit by a Jeep a year ago. It knocked him down, skinned his arm -- he was lucky. If find that the older we get, the less we can bounce back from injuries.

Talking to the coaches over the weekend, they said I managed to move my head enough so that it hit me where it did -- rather than square between the eyes. Both coaches said they saw one of their worst fears when it hit me, and they knew I was dead.

My face started swelling last night, puffing up. My eyelids are starting to get dark red and droop. Cheeks, especially the one on my right side, are getting puffy.

But still, almost no pain. Took a shower this morning, scrubbed the wound lightly with a cloth; seemed to have loosened some hairs from the scabs so that the slight burning sensation I had is gone.

On Friday, I won the lottery of life. Unless there's some nasty brewing in my brain. Time will tell.

Wow! If I weren't exhausted right now I'd do the force calculations to compare the power of being hit by that ball with being hit by bullets of different calibers. Someone big and powerful was looking out for you, that's for sure.

Glad you are alive and remember chicks dig scars!

-Blast

p.s. What was the final score of the ballgame?

Glad you're OK.

As you may know, a minor league coach was killed in July 2007 by a foul ball.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290335,00.html

Here's to hoping there will be no lasting aftereffects.



Well, I'm bored at work so I'll take this on.

A 5 1/8 ounce baseball going at 100 MPH converts to 2242 grains and 146 2/3 feet per second, for about 107 ft-lbs of energy.

A 230 grain .45 ACP round at 850 FPS gets you about 369 ft-lbs, and a 115 grain 9mm round at 1250 FPS gets you about 399 ft-lbs. A 40 grain .22 LR at 1080 FPS gets you about 104 ft-lbs.

The cross-section of a .22 LR is much less than the ball, of course, so it's a lot more likely to make holes in organs that work better without them.

The moral of this story is to do what you did, and duck.

As someone who has had over a dozen serious TBI, you are indeed lucky that they did not find any hematoma, I may have glossed over if you mentioned a concussion being found by the exams.

Be patient. Even with none of that, you will probably be forgetful about the points your talking about and forget words. Head injuries are notorious bleeders. So that is not surprising.

You didn't dodge the ball, but you dodged the worse of it. Heal well.