Zak's accident

[bvark]

While snowboarding in Austria before Christmas, Dave Metcalf (Zakalwe) had a very serious accident, hitting his head on a rock, resulting in a fractured skull and two broken vertebrae.
He was airlifted from the mountain to Innsbruck University hospital, and was operated on twice to repair the damage to his skull and relieve swelling to his brain. He came through both of these operations very successfully, and for the past two weeks he has been in the Neurological Intensive care unit there (rated one of the best in Europe), where he is recovering slowly.

Doctors are no longer worried about the back injury, but the extent of the head injury means that they are keeping him sedated and waking him up very slowly. While he's young and fit (ish), his vital signs are good and CT scans have not revealed major damage, the doctors cannot guarantee or give a timescale for a full recovery until he's awake and has had a proper assessment, including more detailed scans.

We wanted to wait until this had happened before telling most folks what was happening, but it could be some time yet before he regains consciousness and is well enough to transfer back to London for rehabilitation, and I'm aware some people wanted some more information than they had heard.

I visited him yesterday, along with his parents, and he is resting peacefully, looks physically fine (his skull is healing well, but a skinhead may not be appropriate for a few months) and obviously receiving an incredible standard of care (although he has been downgraded from a 19" to a 15" TFT to monitor his vital signs).
While not conscious he responded to the presence of his parents, and has in previous days yawned and moved his arm slightly (possibly because his mother has been playing him guns'n'roses from an MP3 player and he is trying to turn it off).

Your prayers and thoughts would be welcome additions to those of his family, and once he wakes up and is well enough to read them, I'm sure he will appreciate any letters and cards you want to send him (there's no place to put them right now). Unfortunately, until he's transferred out of the ICU they are heavily limiting access, but I'm sure he will greatly benefit from visits when he returns to the UK.

As you know, Njoroge has masterfully reprised his role of ski-trip coordinator, and all is well on the arrangements (including the money paid), however those planning to stay at Zak's before departure will need to make other arrangements.

If you have any more questions, or want to be added to the daily email list apprising people of his progress, please contact bvark, psym or Njoroge (phil / psym / james @ atdot.at).

[Nivek]

hope he recovers soon,

[Big Giant Head]

Get well soon mate.

[Bootz]

Best wishes on your recovery. x

[Groodles]

Lynsey and I wish him a speedy recovery.

[Wizzo]

Best wishes for him and his family. Here's hoping he makes a full recovery and can be back with us next year on the slopes. Let's see what we can get sorted card/photos wise.

[JeRkY]

Very sorry to hear this, all the best zak.

[Boffykins]

Good luck with the recovery Zak. Things aren't the same without you

[Cheez]

Get well soon mate, I'm sure you'll be back with us to be Mr. Commander Says again in no time.

[Limi]

Get well soon buddy! :(

[WhiteKnight]

OMG :eek: , get well soon Zak....

[RTO]

Here's wishing for a full and speedy recovery.

[Wubster]

Get well soon matey!!

Wubby

and since he prolly cant read this ill say get well soon from Captain Moisture too :) You know who i mean

hehe

[lyn]

My thoughts are with you
Get well soon dave
( you still need to teach me how to win at poker)

[Freelance]

get well soon. skiing/boarding injuries suck

[her0n]

It couldn't have happened to a nicer person tbh :(

We love you Zak!

Get well soon,

:hearts:

xxx

[Knight ArmagoN]

HOLY CRAP

that is possibly the last thing i would want to happen to anyone.

Feeling for you Zak, hope your back on your feet soon.

Az

[Mingtea]

Get well soon mate, many more LANs to go!

[Elbonio]

:(

I'll be sure to include him in my prayers


Keep us updated

[Lucifa]

Get well soon mate, it's not the same without our Commander.

Lucifa

[Mamacita]

In my prayers Zak, wishing you a successful recovery.

[Joolz]

Get well soon.

[GeeDee]

Really sorry to hear this. Get well soon Zak & all the best.

:)

[Shadowhunta]

Get well soon Mr Zakalwe,heres wishing you a speedy recovery!

[Dwarf_Pr0n]

I just got back from snowboarding in Andorra and helped a guy with a broken collar bone on Christmas day and I thought that was bad.
Hope he makes afull recovery.

[Dam0cles]

Get well soon.
All the best

[Baroness]

Hope you have a speedy recovery and feel better soon, Zak.

Baroness

[KBB]

I hope you get better soon mate, thats really sad :(

[Weps]

All the best Zak, get well soon.

[BiGW]

Hey dude I actually registered on the forums to say get well soon. Shame you can't come with us in Jan. Hopefully you'll be well enough to go next year instead.

[Dan]

Get well soon Zak, all the best

[Kinetic]

Wishing you a speedy recovery Zak

Best wishes

[Pumpkin]

You bring your own special involvement to every event your at.

We will miss you while your recovering, which for our, but most importantly, for your sake, we all hope is quick.

[Bonkers]

Keep on fighting Zak - all my thoughts and prayers go out to you at a difficult time.
Heres hoping you can be toasting the champange with everyone at an i-series or LAN soon!

[sh0ckwave]

best wishes for a quick recovery zak

[K]

OMG thoughts go out to you m8y all the best and hope your up and on your feet soon.

[KingDaveRa]

Oh man :(

Get well soon.

[Murray-Mint]

Hope you get well soon Zak and can join us at a LAN again.

[- Maverick -]

get well soon

[Pingman]

OMFUGER!

Poor chap, that is most unfortuante, at least now we know why some of you nutters wear helmets when you snow board. hope he gets well very soon.

/me considers gettign a helmet...oh wait ive got travel insurence not to worry.

[her0n]

Travel Insurance won't save your noggin :/

I will definitely be skiing cautiously this year.

[Manic]

Best Wishes, Get well soon

LANs won't be the same till you come back

[afty]

Travel Insurance is your friend... In addition I think we will all be a little more strict about who wears helmets from now on, and about who goes off-piste at what skill level...

[Guigsy]

Truely shocked. Will miss you till your back

[TheGuyver]

:/ gutted. Get well soon m8, thoughts out to you.

[D0c]

Really sorry to hear of this, hope you make a speedy and full recovery

[Aardvark]

Eep! Get well soon Zak, that Commanders chair will be getting lonely without you!

[Mouse_On_Mars]

:eek:

Hope to see you up and about soon.

[Billywhizz]

Hey Zak

Complete n00b heading for my first lan at i23.

Cant think of a better use of my first post than to wish you all the best. Get well soon.

[Killy]

Get well soon Zak, we need someone to come to the lans and show us how it's all done :)

[10acious]

commander keen sais speedy recovery

[Baz]

feel better zak :(

[Spam]

gl in your speedy recovery mate :)

[Silk75]

Get better Zak, miss you on de trip

[jugster]

Get well soon Zak..

All the best.....

[Kharn]

Wishing for the speediest recovery.

Get well soon.

[tiSSue]

i dont actually know him nor have i met him, but hes part of the community and its a real hard hitting message when you read something like this! My prayers are with his family and hope he makes a speedy + full recovery!

[Zenith]

You're in our thoughts Zak. Both LadyU and I hope that you have a full, speedy recovery and that you're back to your old self soon.

Keep on smiling. :)

[LoopyJuice]

Here's to a speedy recovery Zak, hope you have a quick recovery, best wishes.

[StuntMonkey]

All the best to you Zak, wishing you well.

Stunts.

[AcidUK]

Get well soon Zak

[Elye]

Hope you get better soon m8. Not really much more I can say apart from the LAN's wont be the same until you come back.

[Demonic]

Wishing you a full speedy recovery Zak.

[alipuk]

get well soon m8

[MaddyPaulus]

best wishes for a speedy recovery Zak (from MaddyPaulus - the old git with the baldy head) :)

[|FTA|Daggz]

Get well soon, wish u a speedy recovery

[Mamacita]

Here's praying for a quick and easy recovery. Catachan and I wish you and your family all our love and support.

[Barney]

The sheer volume of responses says it all. Get well soon mate

[Freelancer]

get well soon m8

[firestorm]

Zak very unlucky of you to have this accident.

I am sure you will get well soon and be back snowboarding in no time at all.


Regards

Paul / FireStorm

[andyf]

Speedy recovery Zak! We need our Number 1 Burly Man back in action :)

[RocketKnight]

I'm sure you'll be back in action in no time Zak! :)

[Lusc]

Get well soon dude!!

[Flufball]

This sliped my notice by a day, still I hope Zak gets better.

[Lewis]

Zak's a top bloke really sad news to hear

Get well soon mate,

[Gaz]

Get well soon m8

[TelexStar]

I'm not sure what to say other than "Get well soon." My thoughts are with you mate.

[Nes]

My thoughts are with u and your family zak, hope your better soon :(

[Deman]

Horrible thing to happen to such a great person.

Wish you all the best in recovery, sounds like he is in the best possible hands.

I've been through it all with my dad and it's a long road to recovery but it will happen.

Best wishes to his family and .BFC. to help him when he wakes up.

[andyf]

In case anyone is unaware just which one of .BFC. Zakalwe is, here's a reminder.

http://andyf.me.uk/media/zak01.jpg

http://andyf.me.uk/media/zak02.jpg

A great, great man. Intelligent, witty, charming (!), and just immensely fun to be around. Many a time I have set myself up for some gag, and many a time Dave has pounced on the opportunity :)

Dave, may your recovery be swift, may your demeanour continue to be Burly, and may we see you again at a Lan Party.

Get well very, very soon my friend.

[tH0Ry]

Get well soon Zak.

[Unter_hosen]

Zak

I am very very sorry indeed that this has happened. I sincerely hope that a full recovery is made and that the next time I see you, you will be playing some hideous drinking game and/or be merry.

Even after a full recovery, it still doesnt mean i will let you beat me at BF1942 or anything!

oh and "Get Well Soon"

Regards

Martin

[Gifted]

bloody hell... thats really unlucky zak.
hope all goes well and your fighting fit soon..


/me slows up whilst skiing this year :(

[kr-dm1]

Get well soon Zakalwe :)

[Rippsy]

Get well soon mate wont be the same till your back at lans with us all =)

Best wishes from Rippsy :)

[pen]

Any chance of an update? Hows he doing?

[afty]

I spoke with Nj recently, but I don't think he's had time to write anything. Rather than leave this blank after the question and have people panic, I'll answer the question and hope I'm not stepping on anyones toes while doing so. Rather than go into the gory details, I'll try to keep it brief.

He's had what should be his last operation (normal procedure) recently, and should now be on the mend - though it's likely to be a long road. I think it will be some time before those outside the immediate family can visit, but he does have a bed in the UK and flew back here recently (cracking some jokes about food and quality of TV, which I imagine were brought on by spending WEEKS in Austria).

Over the last few weeks Dave has started talking - (he didn't talk for a few days after he woke up) - though it's quite basic at the mo. Before he could speak, he was communicating via gestures for some time. Some of the difficulty of his talking is down the head injury, but some is also due to a very swollen throat, and an operation he had on this.

More recently, they've started getting him on his feet, and in the last few days he's been walking short distances on his own (with a walking aid) - though we don't know how long before that he was playing the "I can't walk" card in order to fall weakly into the arms of the nurses escorting him. We also don't know if the UK nurses are male or female :p

Hopefully his new nurses are as foxy as the Austrian ones, and I'm sure at some point someone will elaborate on the above,

[Guigsy]

a true mpuker wouldnt care about the sex of the nurses :p

[Boffykins]

They're hoping to recover his sexuality soon after his ability to speak more than "yes" or "no".
EDIT: Sorry, or "brilliant" or "shocking". That's all we've been told he's said so far, just to give you an idea of the extent of the injuries. If you want to keep informed on his progress, email Njoroge asking to be added to the mailing list

[bvark]

UK Nurses mostly female, some even speak English, all double baggers from what I saw - nothing like as good as Austria.

Bloody British health system.

[TelexStar]

Originally posted by bvark
UK Nurses mostly female, some even speak English, all double baggers from what I saw - nothing like as good as Austria.

Bloody British health system.

It sounds as though Zak certainly made the most of the Austrian Nurses while he was there...

Today David had been sitting from 8am-12pm in his special chair and had been very active according to the nurses.


The man never disappoints! :D

[*Tsunami*]

It would be nice to be occasionally updated on these forums thou'. A lot of people who know Zak might not want to hear detail of his recovery via email. However, It's great to hear he's getting better, and on the road to recovery.

[no friends]

Get well soon.

You hear about these things i nthe papers and on the news, but it to happen to someone you know must be entirely different...

I don't know you zak, but i know of you! so get well soon!

[Zeuseh]

get well soon.

[phil]

I went to see Dave while I was in the UK this weekend and he is progressing very well, and has shown huge improvement since we last saw him in Innsbruck. I just wanted to let those who posted on the other thread know that I gave Zak the card we made out of the comments posted and he spent a lot of time reading the messages (it ended up as 6 pages!). I think he really appreciated them.

Physically he looks good, his final operation means that his skull looks normal and his scars are healing well. He is mobile and is not attached to any equipment at all. While I was there he walked around the hospital reception 3 times.

He's talking quite a bit, and although he still gets confused often, his responses are mostly coherent and appropriate, so this is a great sign. As you would expect he is having problems with short and long term memory loss, but he is continuing to amaze the nurses and therapists with his rapid recovery, and the Dave I saw yesterday was a hundred times improved from 3 weeks ago.

[pen]

Thats great new :D

[lyn]

excellent news

[Mouse_On_Mars]

Originally posted by phil
his responses are mostly coherent and appropriate
That's better than before. :p:

Great news that he's recovering well. :D

[Deman]

Great to hear, once again can someone add me to the email update list, nj, phil, bvark whoever see's this first :)

[*Tsunami*]

Originally posted by phil

He's talking quite a bit, and although he still gets confused often, his responses are mostly coherent and appropriate, so this is a great sign. As you would expect he is having problems with short and long term memory loss, but he is continuing to amaze the nurses and therapists with his rapid recovery, and the Dave I saw yesterday was a hundred times improved from 3 weeks ago.

Most excellent news, I know people always thinks the worse when head injuries are involved, but excellent recoveries are possible. My old boss had a serious traffic accident, life or death for the 1st week, they seriously thought he wasnt going to make it. 10% of his brain died, surgeons thought he would be in a wheelchair with mental (speech,etc) problems for the rest of his life. 6 Months later he was talking,walking with only memory loss being a bit of a problem (he actually couldn't remember where he worked, who he worked with or anything). He went back to work after 9 months, using a tape recorder device (whatever they are called) to help him remember things short/long term. 2 Years on and he's fine, the injury stopped him playing squash but he took up golf and generally getting on with his life.
It's going to take time, but hopefully Zak will make a full recovery :)

[Njoroge]

Sure thing deman, but you'll have to remind me of your address.

Email me at http://nj.atdot.at/email.gif

The updates are infrequent at the moment but I'll be sure to send them on when I get them.

[Dr.Flexyjerkov]

Get well, asap

[Zakalwe]

Weee!

I'm back at home now (UK and all) looks like work is about 3 months off, so I've got a reasonable time to continue exercising and get hugely strong (maybe :).

Thanks to everyone for the lovely comments above (I didn't even know this was here until I saw it online!) I appear to be getting pretty much fully well at the moment (knee still slightly off but otherwise everything works) and the accident itself sounds nasty - although I have no memory of the time or indeed the holdiay in Ischgl.

Hopefully I will be improving for a while longer so I'll make sure I keep checking the PC and forume myself.

Cheers!

Dave/Zakalwe

[Boffykins]

Woo yeah! Hope you can come along to a LAN soon mate, FBLs certainly aren't the same without you, a number of people have said this.

[jugster]

Best news.... EVER ... Im so glad you ok...


Juggy..

[lyn]

Great to see you back Zac

[afty]

Originally posted by Zakalwe
Weee!

Cheers!

Dave/Zakalwe Great to see you posting here again Dave, the general populace don't put me in my place often enough!

Sorry I couldn't get back to see you recently since you left Wellington-Whatsit Hospital (and I'll forgive you if you don't remember my visit, but if you've lost the two Magic decks you shall be off my christmas list :p ) but great to see you posting on here again.

As I think I've said to a few other people, best of luck in your continued recovery (you were limping alot when I saw you) and I'll hopefully see you soon.

[firestorm]

Good to see you back and ok Zac.

Hope the recovery goes well and seeya at a lan soon ;)

[kr-dm1]

Yay ! The smoking facehugger is back ^_^

WB Zak :)

[Strych]

London cigars and cocktails in no time then ey? ;)
Good to see you getting back on form :D

[Elbonio]

good to have you back buddy!

Been following the e-mail updates throughout and it's great to see you back on here

:D

[Guigsy]

\o/ what a brilliant day! zack is back! and i got a job! w00t!

[Killy]

rar good to see you recovering so well :)

[philip]

hhorible bit of news there but i am glad its all worked out for all of u

[Cabe]

and all is now right with the world.