By David F. Rooney
Outgoing and friendly Mark Davis is lucky to be alive after an October 13 dirt biking accident near Sun Peaks left him with a broken pelvis and internal bleeding.
“My doctor tells me I’m lucky to be alive,” he said Wednesday afternoon, just one day after he was returned by BC Ambulance from Vancouver General Hospital.
Mark is a guy who loved sports, but he’ll be unable to indulge his love of serious physical activity for a while — perhaps as long as six months.
He said he had been dirt biking near Sun Peaks earlier this month when he lost control of his bike and was launched 60 feet through the air and well off the trail.
“I think I hit some wet clay and it was kind of like hitting black ice,” he said.
Although he was cycling with eight other people no one was in his immediate vicinity when the accident occurred. His body was screened from view by vegetation and his bike, which rescuers later had to search for, was also not in view. It had apparently gone tootling along on its own before coming to rest off the path. Ironically, it was completely undamaged.
He was eventually found 90 minutes after the accident just when he was beginning to wonder if he’d have to spend the night out in the woods by himself. He was flown by helicopter to Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops and later to Vancouver General Hospital where surgeons pinned his pelvis back together in two places.
The bruising on the right side of his body is horrific but he is expected to make a full recovery. That may take six months but it beats all of the alternatives: he could have been killed or left paralyzed.
Mark welcomes visits from his friends at QVH — he’s in Room 3 on the acute-care ward (that’s one flight up the stairs from the ground floor). Or you can send him an e-mail or an e-card to shred@telus.net.
