First Visit To UCD Med Center

Left: Bronze (1991) by Lisa Reinertson, UCD Medical Center, Sacramento.


Made my first visit late this afternoon to UCD Med Center to see John Hancock. John was unconscious, following surgery this morning.

Juan Ramos wasn't there (hopefully getting some desperately-needed rest), but other friends and family of John were present. Family members in the waiting room passed around shocking photos of the ruined BMW, taken in the auto shop where they had towed the ruined car. The integrity of the German-engineered, solidly-built passenger compartment was barely maintained following the head-on collision. The driver's area was practically pulverized. The other car must have been moving very fast (someone said maybe 80 mph, although those speeds would be very difficult to reach on Riverside Blvd.)

A physician came out to the waiting room to explain what the surgery that morning had entailed. In general, it sounded pretty good, considering. John stayed warm and his blood pressure remained stable, and there were no complications.

The abdomen had been cleaned and a piece of intestine had been removed. Starting tomorrow, feeding down a feeding tube can start.

The orthopedic surgeons were able to clean and dress the right calf. Both ankles had been broken in the accident, but in the left ankle, the bones had been dislocated as well. The surgeons reduced the amount of dislocation in the left ankle, in anticipation of the time when the bones can be further relocated and set.

John is on continuous dialysis. The hemorrhagic shock caused by accident is causing fluid retention and preventing the kidneys from functioning. The physician anticipates that it will be 5 to 7 days before the swelling has gone down enough to allow kidney function to return.


I'm feeling awfully vulnerable about driving around these days! Seeing all those desperately hurt people in the ICU is enough to make you get religion about all sorts of things, like speed limits and seat belts and drunk driving laws!

Afterwards, I mulled over what I'd seen. Even though it's not quite apropos in this instance, since this collision is more like a crime than an accident, I keep coming back to one of the best books to ever have come out of the decade of the Counterculture 1960's, a book which went through numerous revisions, entitled: "The Idiot's Compleat Guide to Volkswagen Repair," a book which I found most useful when I had my VW Bug (1977 - 1990). There was a quote which I remember, all these years later, and which I paraphrase:

We would all drive a lot more safely if we were strapped like Aztec sacrifices on our front bumpers.

Unarguably true, but maybe beside the point. Maybe most people would drive more safely, but what about the others, the reckless speed demons? There are times when you need every ounce of German ingenuity, and BMW engineering, not the more-fragile VW sort, just to survive!