It was November 29, and the Cincinnati Bengals had just finished a regular season home game. Wiese, an avid Bengal’s fan, decided to walk across the bridge and go to a local bar district, where his close friends and he celebrated the game.
Wiese made the choice to get into his car at the end of the evening to drive home. While heading across the Clay-Wade Bailey Bridge his car hit a retaining wall, flipped and slid over 50 feet. He narrowly missed flipping over the wall and down 20 feet to the streets below.
“My accident started my 28-day ‘nap,’” Wiese said half-heartedly. “I don’t remember anything but was told I was air-lifted to University.”
Without the trauma team at UC Health University Hospital, I might not be writing this letter. It was Labor Day, 2005. I was trimming a large tree in the front yard, when a branch knocked the ladder from underneath me. The prognosis was not good – probable paralysis from the waist down and possible amputation of the right foot.
“It’s a beautiful day near the end of the summer and I am laying on the walk in front of my house bleeding to death. I hear sirens approaching from the distance.” – Robert Brown, Cincinnati
Last February, Rachael was in a serious car accident, severing a major vein, lacerating her liver, and collapsing her lungs. Needless to say, these injuries carry a high mortality rate. But due to the diligence of Dr. Tim Pritts, Dr. Kfir Ben-David, Dr. Steve Barnes, and the rest of the trauma team, Rachael stands as living proof of a Level One trauma center’s worth.
