Amazing X-rays and the stories they tell.
Help us keep “Under Your Skin” feature going by submitting your X-Rays to
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
, or by calling editor Keith Sheffield at (530) 584-3414. Give us your name, age, town of residence, occupation, and the story of how you got that injury under your skin.
Tahoe and Truckee is homebase to adventure seekers, and at times the thrill of landing the next big trick ends up as trip to the hospital in the back of an ambulance.
Sometimes, it’s just a simple goof that throws one from a bike, off a skateboard, into a rock, and next thing you know, you’re getting patched up at Tahoe Forest Hospital.
And then, something freaky comes along, and there’s no possible way to explain how one survived the injury. It’s truly a miracle.
With this issue, the Tahoe World is bringing back its feature “Under Your Skin.”
We want to see your X-rays from sports injuries, or quirky accidents. We want to know the story behind them, how you overcame the injury and worked your way back to health.
We pulled some X-Rays from the vault, offer some new stories, and recall one of the craziest freak accident survival stories that happened right here in our corner of the Sierra:
 THE MIRACLE MAN
Name: Ron Hunt
Injury: Drill Bit through the eye
It was the X-RAY seen ’round the world almost as soon as it was posted to the Sierra Sun’s Web site in 2003.
Then Truckee resident Ron Hunt fell from a ladder at a construction site and onto the 18-inch long, 1 1/8-inch chip-auger drill bit that went through his eye, pushed his brain aside and exited out his skull beside his ear.
Just to write the description of the injury gives us the heebie-jeebies. But miraculously, Hunt survived the accident with minimal trauma, losing the eye and having titanium plates installed where the bit went through his skull, as well as some minor nerve damage in the right side of his face.
A media frenzy began within 36 hours, sending thousands to www.sierrasun.com in 2003.
Within days, the TV shows and media from around the world came calling. Hunt did interviews with The Today Show and Good Morning America.
 In 2006, Hunt’s injury was featured on The Learning Channel show called “101 More Things Removed from the Human Body” — which was more of a how-they-did-it profile of the Washoe Medical Center team that removed (by twisting) the drill bit from Hunt’s skull.
The fact that Hunt survived the freak accident still piques people’s morbid curiosities (including ours).
The X-Ray and the story behind it will, for many years, rule as the most amazing “How I got this under my skin” event to ever be featured in print.
Photo: Ron Hunt, a former Truckee construction worker impaled with an 18-inch auger drill bit through the eye and out the back of his head, received media coverage from Good Morning America and the Today Show, as well as appeared on Maury Povich and Montell Williams.
“The story and the published X-ray spawned discussion around the U.S., including many who thought the story was a hoax. Users of the Web site www.fark.com — which sent more than 30,000 users to www.sierrasun.com in just more than 36 hours — started an online discussion, some who expressed empathy for Hunt, and others who shunned it as fiction.”
 THE DISLOCATION
Name: Brian McAuley
Age: 29
Injury: Dislocated elbow
Location: Western States Trail
How he got this under his skin:
Last July Tahoe City resident Brian McAuley was coming down Western States Trail on his mountain bike. As he came around the bend where a tiny river flows through (about 1 mile from the outlet to Hwy. 89) McAuley dislocated his elbow, he explained.
“I ollied over a rock and landed between two other rocks. I came over the handlebars to brace myself and put my left arm down — not really thinking I was falling that hard or fast. The weight from my body and from the bike crashed down, it must have been more weight than I thought and it all went down on my elbow, dislocating it from the socket completely.
“I knew I had done something to it right away. I felt nauseous and disoriented and my arm just looked broken. All I thought about was how I was going to get down the rest of the trail and get my bike down, but knew I couldn’t carry it. I was in more shock than pain, just sort of weak and tired and my mind was on getting off the trail.”
Recovery:
The doctors set his elbow back in the hospital shortly after the accident and gave him a half-cast and a sling. There were no broken bones or nerve damage so it didn’t really hurt that much, he said, there was some dull pain. He was immobile for about a week and after the doctors took the cast off he was to do exercises to try and get as much range of motion back as possible. When he first got his cast off McAuley remembers that it hurt real bad when he was trying to stretch his arm out.
To this day he can’t completely straighten his arm (he could before) and there is a little bit of pain straightening his arm fully. Doctors say there could be a higher risk of arthritis in the future, but other than that he is doing fine.
 Name: Megan Michelson
Age: 26
Residence: Boulder, Colo.
Occupation: Former Tahoe World reporter and currently an Assistant Editor at Skiing Magazine
How she got this under her skin: (This happened when Michelson was an assistant editor at Outside Magazine in 2006)
The gory details — I was riding my bike on the singletrack outside of Santa Fe. There’s a technical spot where the trail winds around a sharp bend above a steep hillside. In the past, I’ve walked over the rocky ledges in this one tricky spot. On this fateful day, however, I decided to ride it. I hit the first ledge with my front tire and immediately got thrown overboard. I toppled left off my bike like a boomerang, falling head first over the rocky embankment. I fell about 12 feet before coming to a stop. Most of the impact was absorbed by left arm, which was now dangling unnaturally from its socket. The pain was excruciating and I had a two-mile walk and a 20-minute drive to the ER before I could get any medical assistance.
The diagnosis:
A dislocated elbow. The doc said I could be back on my bike in a matter of weeks.
 THE TRIFECTA
Name: Shadow Van Houten
Age: 23
Injury: Dislocated elbow, snapped Ulna and Radius
Location: In the trees off of Squaw Creek chair at Squaw Valley
How she got this under her skin:
Shadow Van Houten’s known to be the type of rider who just goes for it. So when she was charging through the trees on December 29 and saw the perfect bank with what looked to be a soft mound of snow below, she of course went for the jump.
Except her landing wasn’t as comfy as she originally anticipated.
The chunk of powder turned out to be a nasty and deceptive chunk of ice — literally, “a two foot chunk,” Van Houten said.
 “Once my board hit it, it was absolutely solid rock,” she said. “And so I just completely slid out.”
Taken by surprise, Van Houten fell backwards with all her weight on her right elbow. Ohhhh — snap! As in, Van Houten’s ulna and radius, which both ripped through her skin. Not to mention her dislocated elbow.
Recovery:
Twelve screws, two metal plates, 50 staples, four stitches, one month in a brace and another four weeks in a “gnarly metal robot arm” later, and Van Houten’s wounded arm is just about healed — right in time for some sunny, warm and soft spring skiing days.
 Name: Tom Collins
Age: 49
Residence: Truckee
Occupation: USA Snowboard Association Director
How he got this under his skin:
This happened in mid June 1989. I had traded services (printing of a brochure) with a Paraglider instructor and a group of us went to Pyramid Lake in Nevada. After a morning spent doing ground-school type exercises we went to the top of a slope about — 1,000 feet high. They had given me a tandem chute because of my size but did not quite explain that I would be traveling a greater distance because of the bigger chute.
I launched and glided down to about 160 feet and was turning to line up with where our cars were parked. As I turned left I noted that I needed to turn back to the right to continue the ride.
What happened was that I never let go of the left brake as I started to pull the right brake to turn right.
There was no radio communication to tell me what I was doing wrong. As a result I was pulling on both brakes and collapsed the paraglider. Upon impact, I landed like a good snowboarder and my knees struck me in the chest and knocked the wind out of me, so I could not even scream. I had broken both of my legs (bi-lateral tib/fib).
Injury:
The others all glided down to help me and they loaded me into the back of a pick-up truck and off we went to Reno and the hospital. After nine hours of surgery, 22 plates and screws were implanted. There was so much metal in my legs the hospital never put me in casts.
When the doctor visited on rounds the next day, my first question was “would I be able to snowboard again in the future?” His response was he was not sure if I would ever walk again. This metal remained in for two years, I sat out the 1989-90 snowboard season. I resumed snowboarding then next season with plastic braces inserted in my boots. My left leg metal was removed in the spring of 1992 and the metal from the right leg was removed in the fall of 1992. I asked the hospital for the metal back and my friend Bill Olson spot welded it together into a sculpture of a snowboarder. I again broke the right leg (spiral fracture) just before Christmas 1992.
No additional metal was required. I resumed snowboarding the winter of 1993-94. I continue to snowboard as much as possible to the point that I now run the USA Snowboard Association from my Truckee home office.
 KNEE SURGERIES
Name: Laura Waters
Resident: Truckee, Calif.
Surgery: ACL reconstruction
Truckee resident Laura Waters had ACL reconstructive surgery in August 2002. She tore her ACL playing soccer at UConn on the second day of pre-season training.
The surgery:
The doctor wrapped her ACL around a pin and pulled it upward toward her femur. A plate, screw and pin later, Waters has some hardware in her knee, but doesn’t feel a thing, knock on wood. There were little scope holes at first, but more than six-years later, she can’t tell where the holes are. She is getting her other knee scoped next week to prevent any injuries.
Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
