Amazing story that could happen to any of us..
News Article Before Tyler Oatts hit the ground, he knew he'd been shot.
"I didn't know where I was hit, I just knew I couldn't breathe and my shoulder hurt," he said.
He called to his two buddies, ordering one to phone 911 and the other to apply pressure to the wound to help stanch the flow of blood that was quickly pooling around him.
March 13 will mark a year since the accident that almost killed Tyler. The near-death experience forever changed the 19-year-old's outlook on life, but not immediately. For many months he was angry. It wasn't until he was archery hunting for elk last fall, in the quiet of the forest, that he came to terms with what happened, that maybe there was a larger purpose. Now he says he's a changed man.
"I'm still here to do something better with my life," he said. "Now I try to respect everything and everyone."
His mother, Debbie, agreed that he has changed.
"I've had so many people lately say, 'That's the nicest kid,'" she said. "He really has changed, not that he was bad before, but ..."
Target shooting
It was on a Sunday last year that Tyler and two buddies decided to travel from their hometown in Sheridan, Wyo., to the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, just west of town, to shoot prairie dogs. They were getting ready to leave when Tyler decided to do some target practice with his .22 pistol. He set an aluminum can on the ground, stepped back about 15 paces and fired.
When he shot, the hollow-point bullet stuck something � possibly a rock underneath the can �and ricocheted straight back. The bullet severed Tyler's carotid artery in his neck and continued on to fracture two vertebrae just below his skull.
"I was freaking out," he recalled. "I started saying my prayers. I didn't think I was going to make it. I felt like I needed to tell everybody goodbye."
By the time EMTs arrived about 45 minutes later, Tyler had lost a lot of blood and his vision had faded. He remained conscious and was never paralyzed. One of the EMTs was a friend, Mark Galloway, who at first didn't recognize him because he was covered in so much blood.
Within an hour, Tyler was on a jet to Denver for emergency surgery, accompanied by his mother.
"It was scary because they told me he could have a stroke or he could bleed to death" on the flight, Debbie said.
That's because Dr. Gene Moore, of the Denver Health trauma department, had ordered that Tyler be put on anticoagulants to keep any blood clots from the injury entering his brain.
"The local caregivers in Sheridan should be credited for saving his life," Moore said.
Surgical savior
Once Tyler was in Denver, it took four and a half hours of surgery for Moore to replace about an inch of the damaged artery by borrowing a piece of femoral artery from his thigh.
"It was clearly a massive injury," Moore said.
With such penetrating wounds to major arteries, Moore said, the patient typically either dies quickly from blood loss or survives. A grapefruit-sized buildup of blood in Tyler's neck, which was likely pushing on his airway, causing shortness of breath, may also have helped press on the artery to stem the blood loss.
Moore also said Tyler was unusual in that he is among the one in five people who gets a crossover blood flow from his left carotid artery. Without that, the injury to his neck would have starved his brain for oxygen and he would have suffered a stroke.
"Old Ty was lucky," Moore said.
Tyler was in intensive care for two days. When he was finally taken off a respirator his first words were: "What does a guy have to do to get a martini around here? I'm thirsty."
He was released from the hospital after only five days.
"He's kind of a miracle kid," Debbie said.
Recovery
The miracle kid was bedridden for two months. He wore a neck brace for four months. It was a difficult transition for a young man who had played hockey and wanted to be a mixed martial arts fighter before the accident. His weight dropped from 180 pounds to 140.
"I watched a lot of movies," he said. "I was on pain pills the whole time, too, so I wasn't really human."
Debbie said her son became "crabby."
"My tongue was swollen from biting it so often," she said, as she and her husband, Rick, and daughter, Hattie, tried to make Tyler as comfortable as possible.
Tyler said he didn't want to talk about the incident at first, becoming angry whenever someone would bring it up.
"I couldn't accept it. Why me? Why couldn't it be someone else?" he said.
It wasn't until he went archery elk hunting with his buddy, Galloway, that he finally sorted things out. There's no telling if the epiphany helped him shoot a 5x5 bull the last weekend of the season or not.
Hunting has always been a part of Tyler's life. One family photo shows him holding a bow when he was only 3. So returning to the sport didn't cause him any anxiety, although he said he is now especially cautious around firearms.
Debbie, however, remains fearful. She half-jokingly said she cried the entire time Tyler was gone hunting.
Physically, Tyler is now recovered. An 11-inch scar across the right side of his neck and a slightly droopy right eyelid are visible signs of the accident. An 8-inch scar marks the inside of his right thigh and his shoulder is still numb. An X-ray would show he still carries an even deeper reminder � about 10 fragments of the shattered lead bullet remain in his neck.
Debbie is emotionally scarred.
"It was quite traumatic," she said. "I still have a hard time with it. My family tells me I have to get over it."
As part of his continuing physical therapy, Tyler exercises every day and has bulked up to 195 pounds. Next fall, he plans to return to college to pursue a degree in wildlife biology.
But over the past year, because of an accidental shooting, he has become a home-schooled student of philosophy.
"I stopped all of my bad habits," he said. "I love my family and friends. I live life for everyone else, not just myself."
Read more:
http://billingsgazette.com/lifestyl...bc7-843d-d4359fc3df1b.html#ixzz1ncdUmthO
