Finger Frostbite Amputation Photographs

I lived on the street for twenty-five years and never had a serious health issue, even though I slept outdoors under a tarp through every imaginable weather.  But, I got caught in a canyon downslope wind storm that resembled wind storms recorded in the death zone on K2.*  My hands turned blue, but I thought if I warmed them up, they would recover.  Next morning I had blisters, I thought I had second-degree frostbite.  Instead of recovering from a moderate frostbite, my hands died from blood clots.  Apparently, the body will reduce the blood flow to the extremities in order to protect the vital organs in the core during life-threatening wind chill events.  I should have gone straight to the hospital.  Maybe Dr. Amalia Cochran could have saved my digits.  After all, Dr. Amalia Cochran pioneered the use of blood thinners in severe frostbite cases to save fingers and toes with remarkable success rates.  I was blessed with one of the best frostbite experts in the country as my doctor, and all she could do was cut off all of my fingers.

The dynamic duo.

Amalia Cochran MD 

Katherine Elizabeth Smiley MD

If you need an excellent surgeon, (or two) look no further than this blog post.  Fortunately for me, both of these accomplished ladies were working together at the University of Utah hospital intensive care burn unit.

This is no longer the case, however.  Dr. Cochran is now off to Bozeman, Montana!   Dr. Smiley has a private practice as an allopathic trauma surgeon in Bloomington, Indiana.

Ha!  Look at your flowery hat, Amalia!  But because I am a sixties counterculture guy, you can wear tye-dye day glow in surgery for all I care!  I don't place a priority on being a misogynist when facing certain death.  I can't understand gifted feminists and their persecution complexes.

I don't think these ladies are iron maidens who have to maintain a facade of inflexible super-rationality because some idiot invented a notion that women go mad every twenty-eight days.  Therefore, women can't be trusted with the nuclear football.  But we don't live in the world of Betty Friedan and the Feminine Mystique, or in the world of Father Knows Best anymore.  1950's retro thinking is so cliche.  I was so thankful for these women surgeons, and for my free clinic doctor Tanya Williams MD who got me admitted into the hospital.  Superior intelligence, skills, and empathy.  Who cares what sex they are, or what they wear at work.

I needed great surgeons, not a militant Gloria Steinem manning the barricades.  I was lucky to receive such awesome care at the University of Utah burn center.  Amalia Cochran is a universally recognized expert in frostbite, with a slew of medical journal publications. And Dr. Amalia Cochran has published a book on introductory surgery.  Dr. Kate Smiley graduated from medical school with honors! and she has a very successful practice that is based upon a diversity of medical experiences!

I may be thick, but I know good health care professionals when I see them.


* When the Wasatch mountains experience conditions that generate easterly winds, gravity straight line winds may occur with speeds exceeding 100mph.  These straight line winds historically have caused considerable personal and property damage.

Frostbite Cripples Velo Vortmax

For the few readers who have endured my madness over the years, I have suffered through a personal disaster befitting a person of my insignificant stature. Caught outdoors in a downslope windstorm with gusts of eighty miles an hour, my fingers froze, died on the vine, and all four digits on each hand were amputated at the University of Utah burn center by two very capable surgeons, Dr. Amalia Cochran, and Dr. Kate Smiley.  I am typing this missive with my thumbs, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am capable of doing something of value, and that I have not been rendered completely useless. This is an indispensable lesson for people who have an interest in defining cripples as able-bodied human beings, all in an attempt to deny benefits to said persons, in the interest of saving money for the state.

I have for many years been an advocate for cyclists who in many instances claimed innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence against them.  In reviewing the arguments I made against what I considered a corrupt system, I feel ashamed at some of my logic, which reads like fantastically overblown nonsense.  But, perhaps, not in every instance was I mistaken in my assumptions.

I had a premonition of disaster. One fine day I was asleep thinking of a large wind storm that I survived years ago, wondering if such a storm would happen again.  Now, in the aftermath, I feel sick at heart, like a prisoner trapped in a cell helplessly staring through the bars wondering whether I will survive a hideous ordeal.  There were only two things I loved in this world: riding my bicycle and maintaining my state of self-independence free from debt or obligation to others.  Sadly, there was so much amputated from my fingers that I may never be able to ride my road bike again.  It is unfortunate that disasters in life have a tendency to deprive a person of the few things in this world that generate a sense of happiness and well being.  Nothing tops the sensation one feels when descending down a ten percent switchback on a good road bike where you are in complete control and confident nothing will go wrong.  Then, suddenly you realize those days have passed forever.  Then, one fine day you look out the window of an automobile, and see a local team out on a training ride, the tears flow like rain, and you realize there is no one to communicate your thoughts too. Precious cycling memories most people scoff at, lost forever.

Through my misery, I have to laugh at the thought so many people thought it necessary to save my life.  I wandered the streets of Salt Lake City in a frenzy trying to fend off the inevitable like a madman.  People gazed at my dead fingers aghast in horror, some mentioned the consequences of gangrene.  Finally, the wife of a doctor who is a specialist in infectious diseases, Polly, insisted that I ride in her car to a free clinic, where Dr. Tanya Williams instantly faxed photographs of my hands to the University of Utah burn center.  Two burn surgeons, Dr. Amalia Cochran, and Dr. Kate Smiley suggested an immediate admission into the hospital. During the tramp of madness, my weight had dropped from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and twenty-seven pounds.

I spent three weeks in an intensive care unit.  The hospital bill would add another trillion to the national debt.  I will never be able to pay for the fine care I received.  I have been reduced to the status of a circus cripple with eight fingers amputated, disabled for life, sickened to death, dependent on others, and uncertain of the future.  I want to run to some mountain hideaway and vanish forever like some old beaten dog.

People sneered at some of my stupid conclusions, but all I wanted to do was to generate some discussion about the abysmal levels of dope apparently necessary to ride at the highest level in our sport.  The malady did not start with Lance Armstrong or end with Lance Armstrong. People need to realize that if you require men to ride bicycles over successive mountain passes in a single stage that may extend for over a hundred brutal miles, these extreme conditions raced at top speed might provide the riders an incentive to use performance-enhancing drugs.  To think otherwise requires a thought process that is not based in reality.  Riders will continue to cheat as long as the riders agree a high probability of never being caught exists, or they know methods doctors employ to defeat the detection methods employed by the laboratories exist, or the possibility governing bodies are willing to look the other way exist. Indeed, everybody thinks they are bullet proof until they fuck up and make stupid miscalculations.  There is no excuse for these types of stupid miscalculations, and when you face the consequences, you have no one but yourself to blame.

Ask me, I am a living example of a stupid miscalculation. I knew better and still goofed. I have no one but myself to blame.  I was an experienced outdoorsman.  I made a foolish blunder and was caught unprepared. Without modern medicine and surgery, I would be dead.

I will recover.  I used to haunt a library all day reading books, forever in search of that quintessential writing style.  I was despised by some people who frequented that library, and I am sure that they are rejoicing at my absence. I may be back, still adorned in rags, sans my fingers, to destroy your serenity.  So enjoy my hiatus while you can.