Caterpillar to the Rescue

The first thing Joey did after landing in the trench was tell the guys to call for help, "I've got a broken leg and a broken arm, but I'm stable". The guys...

took pictures.

The Fire and Rescue crew out of Battlement Mesa also took pictures, and gave me a CD today containing a few of them. They left out all the pictures of the actual rescue, including harnessing him to the basket and lifting him out with the trackhoe. No pictures of them putting the traction unit or the neck brace on, or even any close up pics of him or the actual accident scene. I have enough pictures though to show you where they had to go to get him, and how they had to do it. Plus they're pretty pictures.


The ambulance had to park at the bottom of the hill because the incline is way too steep for it to make it up. I don't know how they made it up there, but they came down with Joey, loaded into the back of a pickup with the Caterpillar backing it down the hill.

He said that ride was the worst!

But at least he had a beautiful view on the way down. :)

He rode down a hill, then up a hill, then they backed up, then down another hill. They talked him through the bumps and kept telling him they were almost there, and he did his best to stay calm and relaxed.




After talking with more people today we learned that he was thrown on to the metal pipe, then flipped one hundred eighty degrees before being catapulted almost seventy feet to hit the rock wall of a trench, then bounce to the other wall before dropping to it's eight foot bottom. What a ride.

We got new X-Rays at the hospital today, and the doctor is very happy with his progress and says we can go to Texas whenever he's up for the ride. We were planning on leaving in the morning but now we can't leave until workman's comp finds us a fracture specialist in Texas that will adhere to Colorado's laws. Slight bummer, but really after being in the car for a few hours today, I think it's best if he wait a little longer anyway.