This One Time

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• November 08 2005
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Told by Jorge Cuartas

Most who know me well know I have a prosthetic left leg from the knee down. A few years ago, when I started racing, I was at a local practice track and decided to go for this little double jump. I’m still not sure what I did wrong, but I came up a bit short. I separated from the quad, flipped a couple of times, and ended up lying on my back in the median between track lanes. I was knocked out for a couple of seconds.

When I woke up, a guy was standing over me all bug-eyed, waving a red-cross flag like a maniac. I tried to sit up but he advised against it. “Just don’t look down, buddy. You’ll be all right. Just please don’t look down,” he said. My immediate thought was, “Oh God, I’m impaled on something.” You see, the track itself was pretty nice, but once you got offline, the surrounding area looked like Fred Sanford’s yard. It was filled with everything from old tractor parts and tires to fence poles and plumbing. I thought, “I’ve got a fence pole sticking through me or something!”

I did the standard “wiggle fingers and toes.” I moved my arms and legs, and began patting myself down in search of my mystery injury. Nothing. Everything seemed to be moving without pain, and there were no protruding objects, as far as I could tell. I tried to sit up again and the flagger once again intervened. “Just quit moving buddy, and don’t look down,” he said. This time he placed his hand on my chest to keep me down.

I removed my helmet, went through the systems check again, and as I was wiggling my left foot, the flagger grimaced, uttered a quick, “Oh God,” and shut his eyes. “Please buddy, just quit moving.” Against his advice, I sat up.

Everything looked fine to me when I looked down. Well, other than the fact that my prosthetic leg had popped off, was turned backwards, and was completely folded underneath me. The flagger put his knee in my chest to force me back down, but I pushed it away and muttered, “I’m OK.” I freed my left boot, grabbed my prosthesis, and straightened it out. The flagger dropped his flag, half cried and said, “Oh God,” and then turned around, puked all over the place, and ran off. I got up, flipped my quad over, put my helmet on, and proceeded with practice.

As I was unloading my quad the next time I practiced there, I saw the flagger in his truck. I walked over to thank him for his help, and he said, “Man, I went home and told my wife, ‘That boy’s gonna lose that leg.’” I told him it had been lost long ago, and he looked as if he was going to throw up again.