Brief blogging break

Dear Family and Friends,

Sunday John was out riding his dirt bike, with a friend, in the mountains behind Los Alamos and he had a run in with a tree (he's always saying they jump out into his path) this time the tree was a little more stubborn than John.  He sustained 3-4 multiple broken and displaced ribs on his right side and a piece of his rib bone punctured and lodged in his liver.  He had a massive amount of bleeding in his right lung that required a chest tube be inserted to drain the blood.  It is not as easy has they make it look on TV and definitely very painful. 

Today he is doing better, an epidural catheter was inserted into is back (spine) that helps with the pain. They said he is a reluctant pusher (self medicating pain meds), he didn't want to overdose!!   Basically, he is numb from his shoulders to his abdomen, this is making it much easier for him to breath and move.  He is finally eating small amounts of food and keeping it down.  They are monitoring his vitals and everything else, building him up for surgery. 

The path forward is to do surgery within the next day or two, once they ensure that the lung is not bruising and bleeding any more.  The fragment in the liver has not cause any additional problems as this time.  They will remove the fragment and plate his ribs.  I'm going to ask them to do the other side so he'll have built in armor just in case.

They are saying that after the surgery he'll be in the hospital for 2-3 weeks (depends on him) and out of commission for 2-3 months.

I'll give updates by email when there is additional information and when he'll be having surgery.  I'm doing this by email to reduce the amount of time I spend on the phone so I don't go over our plan minutes.  Yesterday, I had 63 in coming and out going calls.

John is in the Critical Care Unit at St. Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe.  If you want to visit, please send me an email with potential days (times are between 1-3pm and 5-7pm, no children, no flowers or plants).  I'll let you know what will work.

I know many of you will want to talk to him, please send an email to cortesy.updates@gmail.com and he'll get your well wishes.  Please share this information with anyone else that knows John and I've forgotten.

Thank you very much for the well wishes and thoughts.

Sincerely,
Becky

Incredible video of an aerotrekking flight near Spokane

See for yourself.




This is what it looks like to a passenger sitting in the back seat in a trike.

Burning Man 2011

Damien just  reported on Burning man with a video he made and then I ran across this video of  weird transporter vehicles from this year's festival.

First this oddity.

And if that is not weird enough, how about this one.

I am going to have to make it over there next year. This looks like too much fun.

Do not try this at home!

Please do not try this at your home field. I love planes and I love motorcycles and even I would not try this.



So many things that could have gone wrong there.

Jetman at the Grand Canyon

This guy keeps pushing the envelope for a personal air vehicle.

I hope to get to see him fly at an exhibition someday.

Blue Devil Wing

So Kamron and Larry are designing a new trike wing to put on the Revo. That may take the price up to 70 grand for their trike. But the performance look awesome.



Wish I had the money for one.