Maggot wracked his bike a few blocks away from where he lives in East Harlem the night of July 12. I do not know anything about the dynamics of the accident.
He was wearing a helmet but no other types of protection. The helmet did save his life.
His injuries include a skull fracture that was taken cared of via surgery the same night, broken ribs, shoulder, and about 5 broken vertebrae, T1-5. T1-4 are not a big deal, spiral fractures, horn fractures, and such, none involved the spinal canal. T5 is the problem child.
Nobody gave me any numbers on the condition of T5 but it really does no look too good. Jerry currently is paralyzed T5 down, meaning chest down at the diaphragm level.
He is being transferred to the Jacobi Medical Center which is home of the Albert Einstein Medical School: http://www.nyc.gov/html/hhc/jacobi/home.html
Without any number related to the T5 fracture, I cannot even make a guess on the prognosis.
He will need surgery on T5 for sure. What we know is that Jerry has no feelings chest down. This does not mean he will paralyzed forever. What it means is that at this point in time the signals coming in and out of T5 are compromised and this is due to two extremes plus a whole variety of things between them. The best possible scenario is that the neuronal deficits are due to simply pressure from the trauma. The other extreme of course is the spinal cord being completely severed. And of course you have a whole shade of gray where there is some spinal cord damage that can vary from very severe to mild. We do not know if Jerry will walk again at this point. MRIs, scans, and x-rays can only tell you so much.
Wednesday he will have surgery and only then we will know the severity of the spinal injury at T5.
Again, the thoracic spinal nerve 5 is the one that is compromised. T5 has motor neurons innervating the chest, sensory pathways bringing information to the brain about the chest, and para and sympathetic components innervating some internal organs. At this point is way to premature to foresee which parts have suffered from damage.
What we know is that his brain is just as damaged as it was before the accident! That was the part I was very worry initially. Knowing that, Jerry will have higher than normal chances of recovery due to his personality.
Even if this whole ordeal means wheelchair, there are options like stem cell treatment that he could get in China and worse comes to worse wingsuit BASE tandems which I'll be more than happy to provide the service!
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Originally Posted by hamsandwich
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