I was in a coma for 3 weeks

Hey folks, Broken Joe here. I'm a little banged up. Actually, I was in a coma for three weeks. So my love for my dirt bike has diminished. I crashed my dirt bike real hard and I got severe internal brain damage and I was in a coma for three weeks. I ruptured my kidney. They tore my urethra. What else? There was a total of 14 stitches inside and outside. on my face yeah there's other things but the biggest problem is my hand I can't use it anymore this is as much as I can use it but this video is gonna be explaining what happened and a warning to everybody so we had some friends over the kids made some friends and we became friends with their parents real good Mark and Caitlin good people and they were all over for a barbecue and we were about to eat inside they were all about to eat inside I was outside cooking and And I just saw my dirt bike sitting there, and I was like, oh, I'm going to go for a rip around the block real quick. Felt real safe. You know, it's my neighborhood. It's no big deal. Just go for a real rip. I'll come back and finish cooking. And I took off, and Mark heard the dirt bike go, and I was gone for a while. And then he asks, Will, what did he ask you? What's at the end of your street? Are there trails down there? Yeah, are there trails down there? Is there anywhere to go? And she told him no, and I guess his face just dropped. and he asked if he could hop on the four-wheeler and just go see if I was okay look for me or whatever and uh that was about 25 minutes eh and um he rode down the street and he saw me off the side of the road in the fetal position about five feet away from my dirt bike just laying there and I guess he came up to me and was real worried you know came up and shook me and um I started moaning a little bit yeah he said he heard me moan or whatever and he knew I wasn't gone um so he he's very smartly went back to the house and quietly told his wife and my wife let's go and uh i guess they hopped in the truck and and what we drove down to where he was and he was basically out just these little moans from time to time and uh he was laying like there was a lot of dew in the grass so his body was wet and caitlin threw a blanket over him and i wrapped my body around him while she was on the phone with 911 and we tried to keep him warm and she kept count of his pulse and then we waited almost 40 minutes for him to come to us we had to call twice because it was taking so long so they um they airlifted me to sudbury or he went to the hospital in Sault Ste. Marie first where they assessed you and found that you had torn your kidney and that had the brain injury and they sedated you and then they airlifted you too airlifted me to sudbury where i spent nine days um unconscious uh in a coma and then they they brought me over to Sault Ste. Marie and i spent a total of three weeks in a coma um they they were telling will all sorts of crazy things they took you into a another room where somebody else had some similar injury and told you what that guy had been over three months yeah three and a half weeks already and they expected him not to be awake for another at least three and they told you i'd never be the same yeah you'd never be the same and i had to prepare myself for the worst and that i was gonna be out for months it could be months and they said it could even take years before you were capable of forming thoughts right and i was awake in in what about just under three weeks and two days after that i was home i had left the hospital against their will um assign myself out but they weren't doing anything for me and it's very dehumanizing being in the hospital um actually fell on my face and my arm crushed my arm even worse um the night before i left so they they they they put a catheter in me and i have a narrow urethra to begin with so they they tore it all up and the one the one doctor actually said looked at my face and said his urethra looks worse than his face type thing so i had a catheter in me for a long time and they took it out that that day and they were like just pee in this cup or whatever laying down and I couldn't I couldn't lay pee laying down I just can't I can't normally and after that rupture to like to my to my uh urethra I I couldn't pee laying down so I had to get up to pee and then I was like exposed I didn't want to expose myself to the nurses and stuff so I tried to like take care of everything and then just I don't even really know what happened I fell and I got a big goose egg and uh crushed my arm real bad this was after they gave me all the MRIs and how many did give me a bunch you had a total of three ct scans i want to say four five mris multiple x-rays and while you were um in the coma you kept getting chest infections which as you they said is normal from being on life support um but they had to keep doing x-rays of your chest yeah so anyways i didn't get any more x-rays after that the hospital and and my arm is so swollen up that we went for one a few days ago but they couldn't even tell so it might be broken it might be fractured but the big problem is the nerve damage my brain's fine I'm here you know what I mean I remember everything except for that day I actually my brain wouldn't let me remember that my brother passed away and I was I was like adamant to talk to him in the hospital I was like I can hear him I can hear him in the hallway why isn't he here why isn't he visiting like where is he blah blah blah like why won't you let me call him and all this stuff and then after I got home my mom and will had to break it to me that he had passed away and that was a real hard thing to deal with for a second time uh it had been like one year anniversary of his death actually and as soon as they told me i knew they weren't joking around but it all came flooding back um but but i remember everything now i actually in the hospital will was worried that that i had lost five years because they were asking me how old i was i kept saying 35 this happened two days before my birthday guys That's another thing I want to say There's a ton of messages on my phone If you guys sent me a happy birthday wish And I didn't reply I'm very sorry but that's why I was out for three weeks Right after my birthday And for anybody who I had dealings with Through YouTube or any kind of contracts Or anything like that Again, very sorry I couldn't do anything about it I was not coherent I actually went somewhere in my coma I have very lucid memories I didn't want to call them dreams because it felt so real uh i was actually there doing those things and when i woke up i was like telling Will i had this the meaning to life and all this crazy weird stuff but it took me a while to be coherent um i actually anyways we're skipping forward a bit um i was driving down the street real quick and i was only about five houses from home and there was like this really soft gray ditch well like this but but very very like flat and I don't really know what happened I don't remember what happened I could have swerved to miss a deer there's tons of deer here I could have just lost control but what I think happened was I think I tried to go down into the ditch just to mess around like you do when you're on a snowmobile or whatever and come back up because the grade wasn't bad but but what I didn't notice it was there was a lot of dew and boulders but big boulders underneath the the longer grass not long grass just about that but i think what happened was i did that and i didn't see a boulder i must have hit it the wrong way and it ragdolled me they said they found me about five feet away from the dirt bike facing the other way which is crazy so i must have just been ragdolled and i smoked my face off of a boulder um but yeah anyways i didn't um what i remember from being in a coma was they would come in in real life the only thing i remember is is them cleaning my mouth out with this antiseptic because i had tubes all down my throat and i had tubes in every orifice except for my ears every orifice but them cleaning my mouth out with this antiseptic sponge i remember that vividly like a hundred times like i they must have done it so many times or i just woke up every time from it or whatever a little bit but i remember that and i remember will talking to me real nicely like i had done something good and that's all i remember from real life from from those three weeks in a coma but i put my my family through it all and i i feel so bad for that um it was such a stupid mistake i'm selling my dirt bike i'm selling my motorcycle i'm not good on two wheels and um i'm not preaching that that it's not a good thing it's just not for me was it dark out when i did that or no it was like sun setting getting dark yeah so i the vision wasn't great either but it was completely my fault and i'm paying the consequences now but um what really woke me up they kept saying like what were they telling you about waking me up told me to play songs or videos or like anything that we were familiar to him so i had been playing our wedding song and a few weeks prior he had been listening to this one song that told me that he totally made him think of me so i kept playing that to him and then uh i had a recording of wolfie doing his woo-woo that he get excited for his food and when joey comes home and so played that for him and he actually tried to call him i started calling wolfie while i was out and that's what finally woke me up you started to come around a bit i had kissed you on the forehead and you just went um it was it was very hard on my my mom came up and we had a lot of support and i want to say thank you to everybody like chris cory mark caitlin um abigail for sure yeah my mom will very much will she she took care of everything will's a rock man she took care of everything uh everything and like didn't let the kids come up to see me thank god i didn't want that at all it's a straight up miracle that i'm here like i could have gone i could have i could have been gone forever and i could have been a vegetable they were worried about me being a vegetable which I wouldn't even want to be around if that was the case. Yeah, the nine days in Sudbury, every time they would try to lower the sedation, they would try to wake him, and they would ask him questions to try to get to see if his brain would respond, like squeeze my fingers and stuff like that, and he wouldn't respond, and they'd have to put him back into the sedative coma. I guess I kept getting like all wild and thrashing around every time and stuff. Yeah, they call it combative, and your body would just thrash. yeah um and i didn't know i i don't remember any of it right like it wasn't it wasn't me doing it i was i was going i was in another place i was i was Lake Superior with these indigenous people like it was the most real thing i've ever felt in my life um yeah and now my hand i have about 10% use of this hand my pinky and my thumb work on this hand these three fingers are numb as can be and i can't like do any motor functions with them or anything and this hand is just dead like there's zero zero use of this hand that's as much now that's an improvement a huge improvement that's as much as i can do but but they said i didn't break anything at that time i might have broke my wrist after on the fall i didn't break anything i couldn't break my collarbone i didn't i didn't break anything which is which is a huge miracle like i could have broken a bunch of stuff i could i could have been gone guys for real um but it's all nerve damage right nerve and ligament damage which I'm praying and hoping that it fixes from what I've heard it will fix it might take months and I might have everlasting uh symptoms of it which is not great for for me being out in the you know what's crazy like I go out on these like week two week long adventures by myself and nothing's ever happened to me and stupid me I'm just gonna rip around the block on the dirt bike like a moron and freaking crash it and you know change my life forever so I feel real bad about putting my family, putting Will through this, and yeah, it's just not for me, not for me anymore, but moving forward, I'm doing physio, I'm doing chiropractor stuff, and I have some nerve damage pills and some cream. I won't be able to get out camping for a long time, guys. I do have one video in the queue. I went camping with Doug's brother, and we caught every trout imaginable, and the Northern Lights were there, and I have all that footage. It's real hard for me to edit, though my finger shakes a lot and it like this one doesn't feel anything so when I push the mouse it's really hard and using my pinky is almost impossible for that so I'll get it done it might take a couple weeks but I'll get it done but you can expect a hiatus from me for a few months I didn't want to I didn't want to at all I wanted to go hard I had a bunch of plans this summer big plans I was gonna go on like a 40-day canoe trip um with Wolfie I had all the logistics worked out i had the food drops worked out and everything will had to email these people and tell them like it's not gonna happen type thing but um this is not what i want obviously i wanted to you know what you don't even take things you take things for granted and you don't even know like why would you even think about taking your hands for granted right it's not even something i would ever think about but here i am upstairs watching my mom and will even emerald do things for me which i absolutely hate will dresses me every day like it's that bad like will will dresses me will cuts up my food um but i'm watching them use their hands to like open packages or open a bottle of water or like a chip bag or cut things with scissors or whatever i'm just sitting there jealous very very very jealous like you don't understand your hands are so important and you take them for granted uh i did 100 and listen listen guys here's the thing the next time any of you think about doing something silly or a little bit on the dangerous side like I really just want you to remember me, because I don't want anybody, any of you to go through this, what I've gone through, like, I'm super, super, super grateful to be here, and to be cognitive, like, my mind is fine, but I'm really bummed out about my hand, like, I can't do anything, you know what I mean, and that's the least of the worries, but it is my biggest worry now, you know, it was the least of the worries while I was in the hospital, everybody was worried about my brain, I didn't have any brain bleed, thank God, and the swelling went down fairly quickly it was just knowing what kind of damage or memories you could have done that the MRIs and CAT scans don't show you until they're awake and you're talking to them yeah, everybody's worried about my brain I just wish they would focus on my arm a little bit more but yeah, just remember me because I don't want any of you to go through that that was insane I don't remember that day but everything else I remember now and um and if i would have left my kids and my wife you know what i mean like that would have been horrible i i certainly don't want to do that and i've made some big changes in my life my my perspective has changed my outlook has changed on life you're gonna see a brand new joe in the future i swear to god um yeah i've uh i've made some huge changes i stopped blazing i i burned for those who don't know for like 25 years every day all day long like religiously you know what I mean, and I just up and quit, like, five days ago. I gave away about $1,000 worth of blood yesterday. I just up and quit, like, five days ago, and I don't even care. I'm happy about it. Whereas before, it wouldn't even have been an option. You know what I mean? It was just a habitual thing. My brain has changed. I'm not the same person anymore. And it's for the better, that part of it. I wish I could have changed without that, you know what I mean, that big extreme thing. But that's the truth, guys. And that's me explaining to you what happened. I hope that you understand, I hope that you don't leave me in these next few months, I will be back, I'll be back better than ever, I'll be back stronger than ever and more appreciative than ever, it'll just take some time, but anybody that's had any nerve damage or ligament damage can attest to the pain, the pain is through the roof, it's like this, it's like 12 out of 10 all the time, I get really no reprieve from it, and no sleep, and it's like from my elbow down, You know there's two bones in your in your elbow the two sharp bones on that side right in between there that ligament is jacked and all the way up and then down and My wrist and my hand again my hands clawing up You can see I have to straighten it with my with my other hand every now and then my fingers so that they don't get Stuck like that and will's got me a sling and stuff Man, it really really really sucks and I'm really really concerned about it but I am believing that it will heal and I think I know that it was God that saved me I shouldn't I shouldn't be talking right now I shouldn't even be awake right now but I'm fully fully coherent like my brain is fine I got a big old nasty scar but it'll make me look like a bad guy and I honestly would rather my whole face be scarred up than my hand be all useless. I feel useless right now. All I want to do is give my kids a hug and hold my kids. You know what I mean? I can do it with this hand, but I can't hold them. Emerald always used to just jump onto me or hold onto my arm and hang or whatever. I used to carry Autumn and stuff. Today I tried to pick up, Will bought some paper towels and I tried to pick up a package of paper towels just in that plastic and I couldn't even do it. I'm sitting there. Or like when I'm trying to take pills, I can't pick them off the counter at all, I have to use my pinky nut or just scoop them into my other hand, all those things are workaround, you know what I mean, everything's okay, I'm here, and I'm real thankful for it, but you guys just gotta be real careful when you do stuff, man, like, everything can change in one second, and I felt very confident on that bike, very, very confident on that bike, and I loved it, I was super, I always wanted to be a motorcycle rider, you can ask Will, always, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, but now I'm selling my motorcycle, and like, this isn't obviously to preach at you guys at all, about that type of stuff, you do your own thing, just be careful, just be safe, like, I didn't know, I don't even know what happened, I've done way worse and walked away from it laughing, this was just zero to a hundred real quick, and put me in my place, so again you're going to see a whole new Joe a better Joe in the future and I hope you guys stick around and I really thank you for everything and I thank you for everybody who reached out for those few people who know and if anybody's trying to get a hold of me and you've seen this maybe you can just pass the message on let them know or whatever but I'm here and I'll be back and I really just want to say thank you to Will for being a rock and I wouldn't be here without her and Mark Mark man you saved my life buddy you really did and i really appreciate it dude um if you didn't have that intuition yeah intuition about that whole thing like i could have been laying out there for an hour man you know i mean um i could have been just out there freezing and moving my neck and doing whatever um but uh thanks mark uh very much so buddy uh this was a game changer what else to say hope you guys forgive me i hope you forgive me well i feel real bad about it i feel very guilty i feel i feel like i hurt a lot of people and i and i scared a lot of people and put a lot of people through a lot of stuff but for no reason at all just stupidity and i ruined my future i ruined this whole year i was supposed to be on kyle and i were supposed to be in Quetico already or in Wabakimi sorry already not only that um i'm supposed to do that big 40 day trip none of that's happening now and and wolfie like i really hope wolf doesn't regress from this because he's used to me On a better note, I'm fine walking and stuff. My legs work fine, and I'm stable on my legs. The first day I came home, I couldn't really walk too good. I had been in a hospital bed, you know, for however long, three weeks or so. And, yeah, which I hated, which I hated so much. But, yeah, now I take Wolf for walks. We put the pinch collar on, and I wrap the leash around my wrist, and he doesn't pull. actually last night, I didn't tell you this, last night we came two feet away from a snowshoe hare on the road, in the middle of the road it didn't move at all, it saw us coming, didn't move at all it was eating or something, waited, finally we got up to it, the wolf wanted to go after it, pulled a little bit felt the pinch, and then stopped thank God, because I couldn't have stopped him if he pulled, my hand would have got jacked up his hand's jacked too, my hand would have got jacked up even more, but those things really work but I know some people don't like them but those people are wrong but um anyways wolf's a saint and he loves me and i love him and he he helped me come back just like wolf did and uh yeah and i'm getting faster though yeah i'm getting much faster i'm taking him for a walk every two walks every day down to down around the block and um that's just all i can do right now i mean that's the most i can do and uh i'm happy that i can do that very happy that i can do that and i'm very happy that my brain is here like it's it's so here that I was playing Wheel of Fortune with my mom who was real good at it and I was beating her and like I was remembering things you guys weren't even remembering and like I'm here I'm Joe I'm here you know what I mean there's no no concern about that the doctor actually told me two days ago don't go on any bumpy four-wheeler rides I was like don't worry about that I ain't doing that she's like don't play any video games I was like alright I can't my hand's a jack she's like don't read I was like don't read she's like yeah you can cause a strain in your brain or whatever and it's like I'm not worried about my brain one bit. All of us are. It's changing for the better. It is. Parts of it that were bad before are gone. And I'm very thankful for everyone in my life. And I'm spending way more time with the girls now, which is good. I never spend summers home. And this summer, I'm going to be home. You know what I mean? And thanks to Joe as well. Thank you very much, Joe. Came and took care of stuff while I was gone. I'm sure there's other people that I'm forgetting. and Jake, and Tammy, a bunch of people, I had so many people praying for me, and looking out for me, and looking out for my family, and it really means a lot, again, because it's just my stupidity that happened, you know what I mean, and it was an accident, but it didn't need to happen, I didn't need to go for that ride at all, I just, I loved my dirt, I loved my dirt bike, and I, every time I saw it, I just wanted to go for a little rip, and that's all I was doing, just a rip around the block, man, and I just never came back, you know, and I almost never, ever came back, But thank God, thank God that I am here and that I'm coherent and my brain has changed for the better. And again, I wish it could have happened differently, but this is what it is. So anyways, thanks a lot, guys. I really appreciate everything you've ever done for me and watched. And I have an idea of what I'm going to do in the future. I'm getting kind of left behind on YouTube. There's all these other outdoor channels just blowing up and I'm struggling to get 100,000 views. and it's all the whole YouTube nonsense, but I have another idea for when I come back. I'm going to, about four times a year, I'm going to really put a big effort into making a movie, and I'm going to have it professionally edited, and there's going to be narration and well shot and stuff, and I'm going to put it on a website and sell it for five bucks. You know what I mean? Then you own that video, you own that movie, and you can watch it as many times as you want. And five bucks is five bucks. I would do that. I would pay five bucks to watch another outdoor video. And this is not going to be a YouTube video. This is not going to be like, hey, check out these Fjällräven pants, blah, blah, blah. It's going to be an actual documentary, like a real documentary. I have the epic places. Yeah, epic places, epic trips, me and Wolfie. I actually had a professional editor in the line ready to help me understand how to shoot it before my next big trip, which isn't going to happen now. And then he was going to help me edit it after. But anyways, that's my plan. And for those people who don't like that, I'm sorry. It is what it is. I can't rely on YouTube anymore, but I'll still put videos out on YouTube. I'm not going to leave it, and I'll still put big trailers out on YouTube and actual videos and stuff, so you don't have to worry. I'm not going anywhere, but about four times a year, I'm going to do this specialty, this big-time epic adventure type stuff, and I hope you guys follow, and I hope you guys enjoy it and like it and appreciate it, which I will, because it will give me another sense of like YouTube is like a soul crushing thing for me for a lot of people and this will give me a renewed sense I could actually show cleaning a fish or putting a knife up to the camera you know what I'm saying to show it off or whatever the case may be where YouTube does not allow that YouTube is the most woke thing in the world and I'm super anti-woke I'm not I'm the least woke person I'm asleep I'm asleep uh so we just don't click anymore but um and if you don't like that I'm sorry you know what I mean I really am but it is what it is this is reality after 15 years you know I'm saying I'm getting just left in the dust so it's time for a change and um again like I said I'm not going to stop making YouTube videos don't worry about that but the specials specials will be about four times a year for five bucks can't go wrong so all right you guys have a good day thanks for helping me with this well there were some things I don't remember from that day so yeah take it easy guys and we'll see you soon I have that that video coming out with Doug's brother