Thanks to Geoff Arnold the file of the audio recording of Alec’s message from his hospital bed available online!

Many thanks to Geoff for hosting this and to Bart who originally recorded it.

Just in from Bart:

I got a call from Alec’s sister and this time she had very little to say… as Alec did most of the talking himself (courtesy of a voice recorder).

Below is a transcription of (most of) Alec’s message, the audio for which I’ll put online as soon as I can (sorry for the delay).

Hello, it’s Alec again for another broadcast, from a bedstead in Lille hospital.

It’s a hot and sticky day and I’m tied to the bed with various bits of rubber tubing and in a most awkward position that you would not like to find yourself in.

Life is improving, especially now that I’ve got some food down me, yoghurt and bits of soup and it’s quite nice generally.

Anyway, so today is tuesday and the way things are looking it may be that by wednesday at some point, at wednesday come midnight I’m going to be (…), and I by wednesday afternoon I expect to be… [now apparantly talking to a doctor or nurse that’s walked in] Some nice people on the voice recorder. Hello. Possibly tomorrow I’ll be going in for an operation on my knee, get my tibia refixed.

[…]

Pardon the interruption. There just was a very nice doctor who told me I shouldn’t be drinking absolutely anything after 2am this morning in case I have a knee operation tomorrow, as I mentioned. They will attach one bit of my tibia to another bit of my tibia with some bolts and screws, and I’ll be in a fit state to have a cast put on it which should make life easier.

I’m still not sure when I’ll be back in the UK because that depends on the state of the rest of my body. They’re mildly concerned about the state of my kidneys and about my bile ducts.

(Here, on the recording, his sister chimes in: “He’s always very bilious”)

Oh lovely, thank you. All things going well it’s not impossible I may be in a hospital in Birmingham on Saturday and starting to recuperate.

On the other hand it may be monday because we have Bastille Day coming up, a national holiday which will probably upset everything. That’s the way
of things.

But anyway, I did want to say thank you to you guys for supporting me, sending me cards and phone messages and so on and I’ll be in touch as much as I can via means like this when I’m back in the UK. Thanks an awful lot, take care, big hugs. Bye Alec.

[…]

Hi, this is Alec. (..) this is just a short bit to say I feel triumphant having eaten two thirds of an egg and some bits of white aspargus — the first solid food I’ve had since thursday morning, I think. Another update in the morning. Thanks again.

Update via email, direct from Bart:

I received a voice message from Alec which I’m currently transcribing (and the recording itself will find its way to you as well) — I’ll send a message with the transcription and the URL to the mp3 once I’ve put it online.

In brief: Alec’s not going to be moved before friday (early next week is more likely), the surgery to set his leg will be tomorrow, and he’s doing reasonably well (though there still is some concern about his kidneys).

More soon.

Here we go – three more updates about Alec! These are in the order that I received them from Rachel

Update 1

Gilles Gravier has visited Alec twice over the weekend, and via Sun folk (bless you Dave) shares the attached pictorial greeting from the man himself! It’t not quite a blog entry from ICU but I was impressed.

Gilles mentions much of the news I shared last night so I won’t repeat it all however I thought this was really encouraging:

They still need him in observation as the only serious risk to his health now is if the spleen fracture reopens (say, through a rough movement of his, which he can’t really do). In which case, they would need to operate in emergency. But given that it’s been already 3 days since the accident, they are very confident that this is an extremely low risk.

Update 2

From Bart via Rachel

This morning I dropped by the Sun office to print out another batch of messages from people (pic of card & messages enclosed) and to pick up Peter Charpentier.

We headed for Lille, met M… and picked up some of Alec’s kit (as it won’t fit in either ambulance, plane luggage compartment or the eurostar luggage rack), so that he can get it when I’m next in the UK.

At the hospital we walked in on Alec enjoying a fruit salad, and the remains of a bowl of soup where visible as well — so he was allowed both food and water.

He is still feeling quite knackered, and the difficulty one of the nurses had to find venal blood earlier this morning left him with black and blue underarms. There were now fewer tubes (fluids and vitamins), his oxygen mask was replaced by a small line, and he was — presumably to preserve his Englishness — being given brown sauce.

(Well, it’s hemoglobin, actually, but it happens to look like brown sauce. He felt it was making him feel a whole lot better, “properly inflated” as he put it)

One of the doctors dropped by and told us that they have no objections to Alec being moved, if it’s done with a doctor present and a suction machine for the tube in his chest.

His leg would be operated on in the UK (for which he’d need to be starved again, but he was happy that he’d have some food in the mean
time, at least), and there would be physiotherapy to get his lungs back up to spec — but overall things are looking pretty good.

With this good news M… went off to call the insurance company to see about arranging Alec’s repatriation (with a bit of luck he may be on his way to England tomorrow) while we chatted with Alec for a bit.

He was happy with all the well wishes he’s received and said to pass his “thank you” back to you all.

Update 3

From Bart via Rachel

I just had M… on the phone who told me that Alec won’t be moved the coming few days; based on the information the insurance company has gotten from the hospital they’re happy with the care Alec is getting in Lille, and — more importantly — feel he’s still not sufficiently well recovered to travel (as there’s still a couple symptoms that may indicate his kidneys need to heal some more).

M… is going to follow up with the insurance company to make sure that if Alec is moved it’s to England (as there’s been some talk about moving him back to the hospital in St.Omer), and that he will get repatriated when it is possible and medically sensible to do so.

We know that that will not happen before thursday (and, if it’s not thursday it probably won’t be friday — Bastille Day — nor the weekend).

This is from Rachel after a conversation with his sister who is in France:

Alec is now confirmed as having 9 broken ribs on the left side and 1 broken rib on the right.

He has been allowed some water today – this (I’m told) made “more pleased than if the french nurses has stood on the table and stripped – and they are pretty nurses!”

It does however preclude any operation on his leg tomorrow for which he will eventually have to be starved again.

He had a very bad ‘down’ from a dose of morphine today, which he said was worse than the pain it was stopping – so he is now refusing any more morphine.

M… was watching the World Cup final – rooting for France because she says everyone has been fantastic. One fun example: when they left the hospital
after their first visit having driven/eurostared through Thursday night they needed to find a named hotel on the edge of the massive 15 block hospital complex. They asked an ambulance driver outside the ICU for directions – he took one look at them, opened the back doors of his ambulance, ushered them in, and took them direct to the hotel!

At present M… is trying to arrange for Alec to be put into a BUPA hospital either in Worcester, or Edgebaston (Birmingham), as the private hospital at Droitwich (closest to the family) can not accept trauma patients as it doesn’t have the relevant kit. M… current guestimate is that even if healing progresses smoothly, Alec is likely to be in hospital for 4-5 weeks minimum. However there is no date set for Alec to be moved yet.

Got this report via Bart at Sun (thanks!).

I visited Alec noon, Saturday 8 July. […]

Alec was very tired but, according to his brother-in-law, doing much better than yesterday. He said he had slept reasonably well which was why he couldn’t see anyone earlier that morning. I thought he looked well, considering; certainly much better than I had anticipated. Somewhat confused about the time of day; hardly surprising, if you doze off now and again. I took a few pictures and will see about posting them somewhere, later.

His hemoglobin levels are now stable which may signal an end to his internal bleeding. He still has a chest drain which seems to be troubling him when breething. And his stomach is protesting about lack of drink and food as he’s still not allowed food or drink so he has to make do with “aqua sprays”; both to keep cool and to keep his mouth moist.

Kidneys and spleen are still suspect, but they aren’t worried about his liver (contrary to earlier messages). He gets paracetamol but not much else by way of pain control (he didn’t like the morphine much and his happy as is).

He demonstrated the all-important art of toe-wiggling and was completely “there”. But speaking tired him very much, so not quite the talkative Alec we all know. So I read him the batch of well-wishes which arrived before I collected them at 7am this morning.

Alec thanks you all for your kind messages and thoughts.

It’s still unclear when he will be moved home or to which hospital; this was somewhat hampered by the inability to call 800 numbers from abroad. […]

All in all, I’m pretty positive about Alec’s condition.

Bart Blanquart from Sun Microsystems in Belgium has just sent out an email about his trip to visit Alec in hospital to see how he was and to very kindly drop off a card with messages from well wishers.

On the left a wall-length table filled with his file and medication schedule, and above the table a large collection of X-rays and scans. On the right there’s a bed, there’s heart and oxygen level monitor cabling, a saline drip, another with glucose, a drain line, and an oxygen mask and its line, and in the middle of that web of tubes there’s Alec — but he looks pretty good (considering), though quite tired.

After saying hello he starts by itemising the different parts of his body that were injured — a bunch of broken ribs (hence the oxygen mask, it allows him to breathe less deeply), kidney and spleen injured, possibly a bit of his lung as well. A broken leg, the fracture just a few centimeters below the knee, which’ll need some metalwork some time in the future.

Apparantly he was overtaking a car or truck and made an miscalculation/mis-estimation of his line and hit the curb, the impact of which catapulted him from his bike and “apparantly I also damaged a road sign. The police want to talk to me to get a statement”.

Alec has not been getting food or drink and most likely won’t be getting any for the next few days (but we’ve given him a set of aerosol cans with water, so that he can at least stop his mouth from drying out), as they’re hoping that his organs will heal by themselves — thereby avoiding a (major) operation.

Now, he’s going to have surgery at least once, even if there’s no need to operate on kidney or spleen, to set his left leg (his left side took the biggest hit), but that’ll have to wait until after his organs have stabilised.

Alec was extremely tired (he was up until 3 at night and was awake again at 6 in the morning) and dozed off a couple times, but he did take his time to scan through the card with all the messages — I printed 35 messages and pasted those in, and (on the hospital parking lot, just before heading in) added a bunch by hand that Dave relayed by phone.

(Thanks everyone for sending them in — I think it did him good to see this show of support/friendship/compassion or however you want to call it. The messages that reached me too late will be taken to him tomorrow, by Casper, and I may head down there on monday if he’s not being repatriated by then so further messages will reach him).

He’s not in pain as long as he keeps still — so he keeps still most of the day, only disturbed by the changing of the sheets (for which he asked me to write some instructions in French, so he could point the nurses to them, so they’d support his leg properly when moving him).

By now he was getting pretty sleepy, so I said goodbye and headed out.

Bart

Another update, again from Alec’s sister via Rachel:

The Dr’s are still really worried about his internal injuries, and want to stabilise these before working on his broken leg. He’s not being allowed water, and is getting very grumpy!

When…. Hopefully next week…. He is returned to the UK, the family hope is he will be put in Droitwich hospital near them. So those that want to visit him may have a bit of a trek to make. However this is not confirmed, and I’ve not heard Alec’s views on the subject.

Thanks to Rac for the latest update from Alec’s sister, this time via his other sister in the US!

M… (sis 2) has seen Alec. She describes him as ‘compos mentis’ and able to turn her fingers blue with his grip. He’s got a broken leg, and broken ribs, and they (doctors) are concerned about chest injuries, and liver and spleen damage. He’s in intensive care, but she also mentioned that they are talking about sending him to England in a few days.

That’s all for the present, and I suspect will be for a bit now.

Just been forwarded an email by a mutual friend quoting Alec’s sister.

I got hold of the hospital in St Omer . They said he was quite serious but the expect him to survive. He has many problems, spleen (not too bad), kidney (more serious), chest including blood in his chest, many broken ribs and a broken leg. They were about to put him on to a helicopter to Lille where the major trauma unit is.

I (Ed: his sister) went out to tell mother and father and to collect Euros from friends.

On my return I tried to phone Lille to find out how he was after the transfer. They couldn’t find him. Eventually they gave up and I called St Omer back. He was too big for the helicopter so they’d had to take him by road.

He is now in Lille and they have put a drain in his chest.