Gary Rust’s Bike Accident

On the evening of September 30th, my friend and teammate, Gary Rust, and avid road cyclist, was attending a final club ride for the Summer season for the Vancouver Bicycle Club. Midway through the ride, Gary pulled out of the pace line  to sprint when his cleat suddenly released from his pedal, causing him to lose balance, and subsequently flip over his handle bars and land on his head, knocking him unconscious for approximately 5 minutes.

EMTs arrived and brought Gary to PeaceHealth
Southwest Medical Center in East Vancouver, where he was sedated and placed on a breathing machine due to his erratic breathing. Further examinations showed that he had in total broken 4 ribs, punctured his right lung, causing it to partially collapse, a head laceration, and a grade 4 concussion.

Late morning of the 1st of October, the doctors decided that he was stable enough to remove his breathing tube and get him to initiate breathing on his own. During this process, my Gary had an asthma attack, which was
quickly treated by the respiratory therapists. Shortly after this, Gary regained consciousness and began to show signs of improvement, even talking a bit, but still very sleepy. It was clear at this point that he had some very serious memory and confusion issues, often repeating himself every few minutes, and forgetting things that happened just moments before. His memory from before the crash seems intact, but he was unable to remember things that happened afterwards.

For the first three days after the crash, Gary seemed to progress fairly quickly, starting to talk more and more, and beginning to get his strength back, but still had definite memory problems and still bits of confusion. This prompted the neurological team at the hospital to do more in depth scanning of his brain with an MRI. The most recent MRI gave some explanations for this behavior, unfortunately showing that his head injury was more serious than just a typical concussion.
In the crash, Gary sustained a diffuse axonal injury (DAI) or 
“shear injury” which effectively means he has small injuries diffusely throughout his brain. These injuries are likely to blame for his forgetfulness, confusion, repetitiveness, and difficulty moving his left leg. With this type of injury comes what is likely a long road of rehabilitation ahead. This will mean weeks, potentially months in an inpatient rehab facility, and lots of work to get his life back in a position where he can take care of himself. While the doctor did state that some of this damage could potentially be permanent, and there is no telling how long recovery will take, or just how much he can recover, he seemed confident that there will be much improvement for Gary, and that his physical shape and drive will prove to be huge in his recovery process.
As a local Vancouver-area Barber, Gary is self-employed and will obviously be unable to support himself during this time of recovery. Additionally, Gary was in the process of selecting a health insurance plan at the time of his crash, meaning we will need to find an alternate way to pay for the costs from his care up to this date, and the care he will likely need for some time in the future.
I am starting this page so that Gary can have some financial relief for this entire process, and get assistance with his medical and living expenses while he recovers from these injuries. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he recovers.