Troopers, Lawyers, and Doctors...oh my!

From 1971 to early 1974 I was the school bus driver at the Travis State School on FM 969 just East of Austin, Texas. On August 29 1973 at 5:00pm after work right in front of TSS, I left the main entrance of the school to go home. It was the end of the work day. I stopped my 650 Triumph motorcycle behind a stopped car in front of me on FM 969 to turn left, the car in front of me was doing the same thing, waiting to turn left.

Two years later in court I finally found out the details of what happened to me that day. In court one Texas DPS Trooper testified that the speed of the car which crushed my motorcycle into the car in front of me that afternoon was moving "in excess of 45mph" at the point of impact. One witness in court stated I "went as high in the air as the telephone poles" and some 125 feet down the road "he landed straight up and down on his head like a pole."

The black top was hard, I lost consciousness immediately on impact. Actually I lost all vision on the way up into the air as well, everything went gray until I hit the ground and everything went black. I think all the blood in my brain was suddenly rushing to my toes on the way up, and just the opposite happened when I hit. I had a helmet on and did not die.

I was figuratively speaking the "man mountain" 230 pounds of muscle with two years training TaeKwonDo starting in high school, not a expert, but I was in top shape. I was not Chuck Norris but I could and bend over and kiss both knee caps without unlocking my knees, I was flex-a-bull, and I had learned alot about honor. I had a flying front kick that was "pruty dang good." When I was younger I was a member of the Austin Aquatic Club at age 11, my specialty was the butterfly stroke. My other sport of choice as I grew up in Austin and on the Highland Lakes was sailing 14'/16' Hobie catamarans. I had always been as my parents put it, "healthy as a horse." All I had ever done before the bus driving job at TSS was hard work and lots of it. I had to leave all that behind after my accident.

There was a crowd standing over me when I finally regained consciousness and one lady was crying and she saying over and over, "he's dead, oh my god, he's dead." I wondered at the time who it was she was crying about, who was "dead?" I knew something had happened but I did not know what. After I came to I could not move for a few minutes, whoever called in the accident reported that I was "dead." My body started to respond after a short while, nothing functioned much at all and the asphalt was burning me(it was hot that day in Texas) and I finally managed to stick my hand up and said "help." The guy that was driving the car that hit me reached down and pulled me to my feet and slapped me on the back and told me, "your all right...boy you sure are lucky!"

The ambulance(that's what EMS was called back then) driver was just more than a little disappointed to find out that I was not dead. He had driven "all the way out here" to pick up the person who had been "killed." The ambulance driver left, after all there was not a mark on me, I knew who I was, and was up and walking so he left. I was in no condition to question that decision.

By the time the three different law enforcement agencies got through deciding who was in charge at the "scene of the accident" a fair bit of time had passed. Austin Police Department came to the scene within 5 minutes, then the Travis County Sheriff's Dept. then finally the Dept. of Public Safety called and took charge... the accident was in their "jurisdiction," and two DPS troopers arrived on the scene about an hour later. By the time the DPS got there and started to "investigate" I was starting come out of or go into shock(who knows which) I started to feel very bad and I knew something was wrong with me.

I interrupted one of the DPS troopers who was conducting an interview with one of the witnesses of the accident. I wanted to ask the DPS Trooper if I could lay down in the back seat of his patrol car. There was no where to lay down except the weeds in the bar ditch or on the road. I tried to ask the trooper for permission to use his patrol car twice. The second time I asked he told me he was going to "arrest me" for "interfering with a law officer in the performance of his duties." The trooper was ticked off that I kept interrupting him. He stated that his dinner was "still sitting on the table at home" and he wanted to "get back" an finish his dinner "before it got cold." You see the troopers had been called out to investigate the "dead guy" only I wasn't dead. The two DPS officers were a little put out about having been called away from dinner to the scene of a fatality...and there I was walking around.

So when I was finally released from the scene of the wreck I was not feeling all that well. One of the teachers from Travis State School who saw the accident happen took me to the emergency room in Austin. The Brackenridge doctor at the emergency room said "you look OK." That's what the doctor at Brackenridge said again the next morning when I went back to the emergency room, he blew me off just like the doctor from the night before. All I could tell them was that a car had knocked me off my motorcycle and that I "hurt all over." I went back the next morning because I was in a lot of pain and had never fallen to sleep at all during the night, I just stared at the ceiling for about ten hours. I hurt all over. I lay there in pain...sounds odd but I felt like I was vibrating, it was very strange.

Something was wrong and I did not know what to do, I only knew I needed help so I kept trying to find some kind of medical care. The regular MD I went to after the emergency room doctors turned me away the second time said that I "looked OK" and that I would be sore for a week or two. When I went back in to see him two weeks later I told him I felt worse. He said "nothing was wrong on the x-rays." He decided to give me a prescription for Valium as he thought I seemed, "a little excited."

As the days passed I felt worse and worse and so I got an appointment to see a well known and expensive orthopedic doctor that was recommended to my family. There was no MRI or CAT scan technology back then, I only knew I needed an expert to find out what was wrong. This doctor was the best orthopedic surgeon in Austin, it took two months to get an appointment.

When I finally got in to see him, nothing showed on x-rays....he sent me for a second opinion...and of course somemore Valium. The second opinion doctor the expert sent me to told me it was "all in my head." I felt then that I was being railroaded and that the fix was in. I was in terrible pain by this time, I had to kneel next to the sink to wash my hands...bending even a little over the sink was too painful, I could not handle it, it was better to kneel next to the sink then bend that little bit.

I did not know what to do except go to court and try to get some money so I could afford to get a physician that would really help me. After the accident I finally got to where I had to quit driving the bus out at the Travis State School. I got jobs where ever I could. I would work a few weeks till the pain got unbearable... then I would quit working till the money ran out then I had no food and I starved and could not pay the rent. So I would work for as long as I could stand the pain again then quit work...then starve and had no rent money. This went on for for almost two years.

Each month I was buying a twenty pound bag of beans and a ten pound bag of rice... that's what I had to eat most of the month, month after month. Every once and awhile my parents would bring over some grocerys. They had decided I was faking the pain or just crazy...after all, the doctors could not find anything wrong.

My life became a tortureous thing and I came very close to taking my life. I went from 230 pounds to 160 pounds. There was no heat in my house in the winter and no electricity in the summer. I could not work enough to pay the utility bills. I got a kerosene powered one burner stove and two kerosene lamps. I found out you can make a gallon of kerosene last almost a month if you try. The doctors had said "there is nothing wrong with you" so of course I did not qualify for any special help from the city utility department.

So it took two years to get my case into court, it took that long for a reason. The delays were caused by the owners of the car that hit me and their attorneys constantly filing for delay of the trial. This is something that attorneys do, it's a tactic called "starving out the plaintiff." This is a strategy used to try to get people to settle out of court.

Much to my suprizeI lost the court case. The expert orthopedic surgeon that I went to said my pain was all in my head, and he testified against me. I later found out this "expert" doctor turned out to be "the head lobbyist for the Texas insurance industry at the Texas legislature" here in Austin. Funny thing it did not say that on his office door. No other doctor would examine me after the expert/lobbyist doctor had made his determination. No other doctor wanted to end up in court testifying against "the head lobbyist for the Texas insurance industry." By going to the best orthopedic surgeon/lobbyist in Austin I had in effect ended up cutting myself off from any medical help from another doctor.

Austin Attorney Jxxx Cxxxxx sure was a good lawyer...sure wish he had been my attorney...Cxxxx Bxxxk Used Car lot picked Jxxx Cxxxxx as their lawyer. Never try to sue one of the richest families in Austin when they can afford three of the top lawyers in the state, that's what I found out.

Actually the judge at my trial would not accept the jury's "guilty verdict" on my case unless the jury added a provision that I be "paid in full" for my motorcycle and "all medical expenses up to the time of the jury's verdict." That's what happened, the judge's provision was added. This was just a little different than most jury verdicts. First I am punished by being found guilty of causing the accident and then I was rewarded with repayment of the cost of my motorcycle and medical expenses...go figure.

I was a very confused person by this time, there really are no words...except perhaps...despair.

Then there was a ray of hope, I thought I would receive some help. When no other doctor would take me as a patient I applied for help at the TRC(Texas Rehabilitation Commission.) But I never said I was involved in a legal action, I did not tell the doctor at the TRC about my law suit. So I had been seening a physical therpist at the TRC for over 6 months just before my law suit went to court.

After I "lost" the case my TRC doctor sent me an appointment to come see him. He berated me for almost getting him involved in my court case, he was hot. he was just a little upset that I had not told him about my law suit. During the trial the judge had asked this TRC doctor to testify for me and the doctor had refused. He stood there in his office and told me he would "drop me as a patient" if I tried to appeal my court case. I had orginally gone to him as a last resort, fearing I would take my own life rather than live with the pain I was suffering from.

I really wanted to appeal my case but had no new evidence to work with. At that time I thought he was black mailing me with my own life, I still think that to this day. I told him I would not appeal my court case...I had to I was afraid of what I might do it I received no medical help. The only reason the TRC doctor was thinking of operating on me at all was because of the physical therypists reports. The TRC doctor did not think anything was wrong with me...nothing showed on the x-rays...he felt I was OK.

Two weeks after I lost the court case my Texas Rehabilitation Commission Doctor and another surgeon opened me up for a exploratory(two hour) operation and gee and golly 5 surgeons and 8 hours later they finished giving me an operation that they do not like to give at TRC(1975). That was because that operation does not work...they gave me an operation that they knew would lower my life expectancy. But the damage after two years of no proper medical care by any doctor had left TRC surgeons no choice.

The TRC doctor told my parents that the accident had caused the damage and that I did have pinched nerves where my spinal cord came out from under my L-5 , my secal table had been "destroyed." He told my parents but not me. No one wanted to "upset me" with that news. They just told me I did have pinched nerves...they did not say why and after the surgery I was in no shape to ask for details.

I did the best I could after I recovered from the operation(took a year). I went looking for some kind of work, but I hit a snag, I looked OK...I didn't look disabled. The TRC doctor told me I could "do what ever I wanted to," after the operation. But that was not quite what happened, I had problems with my back shortly after my long painful recovery.

Finding work turned out to be a problem. If I lied and did not mention my back operation employers would find a figurative speaking "piano" of some kind for me to move, that was not going to work. If I told the truth as to my back problem no one would hire me, Catch 22.

The operation on my back started to unfuse shortly after I started trying to work again. I tried to file for SSDI in 1979 but was refused. I finally found a job no one wanted to do, these employers had a 75% employee turn over during a 9 month school year. These employers were not to picky as to who they hired and I did not have to lift anything and could work part time. So I drove Sp. Ed Wheelchair busses for the Austin Independent School District for about 14 years, my back gave out almost completely in 1985, but I kept driving, I didn't know what else to do, finally I had to quit working 1989.

I applied for SSDI Social Security again in 1992. Same deal as before, lived off my retirement funds for a year or so....no money coming in after my AISD retirement funds ran out. So back to the same routines as before...this time I got food stamps...no work or any income. All the utilities were cut off. I still had my kerosene stove and lamps but now there was a new city policy in Austin... a lock on the water meter. I was hauling water from a neighbor's house across the street on a little hand dolly, one half full 5 gallon bucket at a time.

My request to Social Security was denied(1993)...then denied at the second appeal(1994). Three years after I first applied a jusdge at the full Federal hearing(1995) finally heard my whole story and the head representative at Texas Rehabilitation Commission confirmed my information about the nature of the operation that I was given....the limited life expectancy was the kicker.

How did I find out about that? Back in 1975 both my sister and her husband were DDs(disability determiners) for the TRC when I had my operation.....that was the only reason I knew about the operations real effect....TRC doctors never told me....did not want to upset me.....did not want me to appeal my court case either. They talked openly to my brother in-law not realizing I was related to him. They told him everything they did not want me to know and then some.

For some reason the TRC doctors did not want anybody to know that they did not tell me what had caused the damage to my spine and spinal cord or what kind of operation they had really given me. Nothing was in writing however and I could not prove anything. The TRC doctors wrote up their report saying the operation was a success.

I was forced to work for twenty years with a back operation that did not work, and was known to cause a lowered life expectancy. I was given no chance for a court appeal and no choice but to work in pain....to suffer for almost two decades.

So I drove those Sp. Ed Wheelchair Busses for the Austin Independent school district, helping disabled folks who needed help....me included of course(got to pay the rent.) I was not being noble or anything at that time. I was just trying to survive in my home town, I did not want to end up on the streets.

As it turned out I felt my goal was to help the disabled kids by being a considerate bus driver. True the whole time I felt I was less than a person, just a shadow of what I could have been. I was a disabled bus driver and the kids were disabled, so we had something in common.

I am 47 years old now, just a little young to be on full SSDI. By TRC records no one has lived past 56 yrs old with that operation that I was given in 1975....I was told by a TRC doctor in 1991 to "persevere."

Since 1995 I have been on Medicare and a general MD has taken the risk of prescribing Hydrododone and Piroxicam for me on a monthly basis. This is the first time a physician has prescribed pain medication for my back since 1975. This is I think the first real, honest medical help I can remember receiving since my accident over 20 years ago. I was desperate from pain for so many years and my current doctor can see that, at least I hope he can. Hell... what am I saying, I told him I need some kind of pain medication in no uncertain terms...vocal desperation was all I had to work with, that and the facts.

My doctor is of course afraid he will get in trouble with the Feds for prescribing a simple pain medication that is classified as a narcotic. I am afraid of what will happen if he has to stop helping me. The medication does not remove all the pain but it helps me to cope as my condition is getting worse and worse as time goes by.

I go to bed in pain, spend the night in pain and get up in pain. I have good days and I have bad days, you can almost predict when a storm front is coming in by the look on my face. It has been that way for me since 1973.

If you have read all of this I thank you. If you suffer from chronic debilitating pain I can only give you this advice. Just take each day as it comes, look up to the sunshine... every night has its dawn. Take the energy the pain gives you and embrace it, you can't run away from it.

Try to find a doctor who will help you, don't give up. Don't let the pain consume you...use it if you can, turn the pain around and use that "energy" to empower yourself.

Rick Hall....Austin, Texas