I have posted this before, but for the benefit of some of our new readers --------
Both legs were completely numb and unusable due to hitting the instrument panel, so I just opened the seat belt and dropped to the ground in case there was a fire.. I managed to pull myself to the road where, after a few minutes -----
We had finished spraying and were returning to Fredricton from Bathurst for clearance to return to the US. For some reason never explained, they refused to fill our reserve tanks and we had to fly almost to an empty tank to reach Fredricton. On the way a friend of mine ran dry and started gliding down for a forced landing.
Since his wing man was a bit err, inefficient, I broke and followed them down. We were over rolling farmland, but it had apparently just rained since when he attempted to land, he threw mud and went sideways, ending up on the aircraft's back. I flew to within a few ft of him for several passes to see if he needed help, nothing. So I made a new approach, throttled down and was just about ready to touchdown, when he crawled out of his aircraft and waved at me.
I promptly poured on the power, gained a bit of altitude and headed for a 2 story farmhouse about 3 kilometers away. I circled it a few times with no activity showing, so I then flew extremely close, hit the throttle and changed my prop pitch a few times. this must have lifted the beds a few ft into the air . Almost immediately the farmer stuck his head out of the window - nope , no shotgun, I then wriggled my wings a few times then still wriggling them headed to where my friend was, circled him twice then headed back to my farmer. He waved and gave me the OK sign so I collared his wingman and continued on to Fredrickton..
Unfortunately Fredericton and the st Johns river was blanketed with a thick fog, the airport was unusable and there were no alternates within my remaining flying time. Since I didn't have enough gasoline to return to Bathurst I decided on an emergency landing on one of the lesser traveled side roads.
I made two slow approaches checking for cables etc, . then lined up and came in on my final approach. To line up with the roads I had to put my left wingtip to within 6 inches of a telephone pole. Naturally I was watching the tel pole carefully when it suddenly exploaded ?? The aircraft naturally slowed down , stalled , pivoted on it's wings and went straight down.. I hit the asphalt at about 50 + mph..leaving an imprint in the surface of about 2 ft deep. it then flipped forward also at about 50 mph and inutes, I could stand again. I waved his wing man off and he successfully landed in a near by field.
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Later examination found that I had missed a cross road cable and had hit it squarely on my nose spinner. pulling the cable out of the tel pole. The loose end had whipped just over my head scratching the top of my helmet, and cut through the cabane struts then sawed back out of the aircraft, again hitting the top of my helmet. It was estimated that a few inches lower and it would have cut my head off.
So there I was, heroically, naturally, withstanding the horrible pain - which honestly I never felt at all due to a previous self hyp suggestion.. However an hour or so later I began to feel very tired and the broken bones were beginning to complain as the auto hyp suggestion started to wear off., so they took me to the hospital where they had a RCAF medical doctor that specialized in aircraft wrecks waiting for me.
He put me to sleep, and when I woke up a pretty nurse was trying to get a date from me, honest, hehehe. He confirmed the broken neck and ribs, so I asked him "will I have to wear a neck brace for very long"? "Nope" he replied," I don't believe in them, I believe in giving the neck full mobility so that it heals normally, otherwise many problems develop later.'. the rest of this story continues in the last post in flying back to Phoenix.
However, in line with Tayopa, my neck hadn't fully healed when I started on the Tayopa hunt. At times on the trail, when I looked to the left it would lock up on me for a day or so and HURT. However the worst hurt came later.when at times I couldn't move from the pain at night. Mi tiger soon learned to put hot water in a mason jar, cover it with a towel, then let me lie on my right side with it under my neck. Once she forgot to screw the lid on tightly and the boiling water saturated the towel, however since I didn't know it was escaping, to me the heat felt wonderful, later we found that I had a blister the size of my palm on my neck, yet that had felt wonderful compared to the basic neck pain. It has been years since it has given me any pain, although it still cracks loudly once in a while
