Crashing Into Potential. Scott B Harris
blurry in my mind as to what actually followed. My only memories of that day were the photos that were taken and the fact that I knew I had fun, I knew I was with my friends, and I knew that my wallet was crying due to weight loss. I was hoping for another box trifecta like I’d won the previous year. In my total gambling career I was definitely up, as I had won $1000 the year before and I’d never spent that much on gambling in my life. I really wasn’t a big gambler; the Spring Carnival was the only time that my wallet came out to gamble. I knew that it was dead money as soon as it touched the bookie’s hand. On top of the gambling, which wasn’t all that much in the end, there was the cost of drinks that seemed to go up and up and up each year. I guess that’s just the price you pay when participating in one of Melbourne’s great festivals.
In what seemed like less than a microsecond, I was in a hospital bed, a month later, looking up at Jaclyn, who was my brother’s girlfriend at the time, who was playing ‘Here comes the aeroplane’ with a spoonful of slop. Confused? So was I.
A couple of weeks after the Spring Carnival Derby Day, I had a motorbike accident that resulted in the worst day of my life. This was the absolute hardest time for everyone in my family too. They are forever haunted by the sixteen days I was in a coma, unsure whether I would wake up, let alone be able to live a normal life again. For my part, I was not consciously present and had no memory of it at all.
I was with my mates on Saturday, 15 November 2008, riding my dirt bike on a property in Smiths Gully in Melbourne’s outer northeast. It was at the very end of the day when I decided to go down for one last lap of the paddock before heading back to the house. I was going to meet another group of mates there for some springtime fun in the sun around the pool.
I got to the end of the paddock, turned around and rode back up the hill. It was not a tricky hill at all, but it had a little bend in the track before opening up to a landing about 100 metres long. I was going fast. If you’ve ever ridden a motorbike you will know the rush I would have been feeling at the time. The best way to start that hill was to give it full throttle and keep it pinned all the way to the top, because the top was my best chance to pop onto the back wheel and nearly wet my pants with excitement.
We had touched on the idea of riding down another track on that hill to avoid having an accident, but this wasn’t a rule and it wasn’t set in stone. I chose the one with the bend. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time on the wrong day of my life. I ran right into my mate who was riding down the same track at the same second that I was. Boom. Lights out. Hindsight’s a bitch when it wants to be.
The carnage looked like two angry wildebeests had fought in the wild, except our wildebeest were two KTM 450cc dirt bikes. Another mate was following behind me and saw everything happen. He said it was like watching a finishing move in Mortal Kombat in slow motion. He could see what was happening but was helpless to stop it. We hit each other head-on and when I say ‘head-on’, I mean ‘HEAD-ON’. Our front wheels were aligned perfectly and you could see the imprint of his wheel in mine. The mate following threw his bike down and ran to help.
He knew that both of us were in serious trouble. He was shouting in my face, ‘SCOTT, SCOTT, SCOTT...’ No response. He ran over to our mate and did the same thing, like a sequel to a horror movie. Neither of us was responsive. Another two mates, brothers who lived at the property, finally caught up with us. The first guy to arrive felt his heart sink because for a split second he thought it was his own brother who was in trouble on the ground and not moving.
From the time of the accident until the air ambulance flew me away, everything ran like clockwork. One mate, Dave, rode off straight to the house to ring 000, his brother, Ryan, rode to the front gate and our other mate stayed with the two of us to make sure we were still breathing. There were five of us riding that day, and two of our lives depended on the teamwork of the other three. I am so grateful that I had the mates I had with me, and I am really proud of the teamwork that they put in that day.
Sam, the mate I hit, stood up at one point, took one step and then hit the deck. He was extremely lucky because, unknown to anyone, he had broken his neck. A few more steps could have left him bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his existence on earth. I, contrary to popular belief, was the luckiest at the time because I was knocked out cold and didn’t budge. With the state my neck was in, any slight movement could have left me writing this book through a voice-activated dictaphone.
The ambulance arrived within fifteen minutes, only to find that there was no way to drive down through the goat tracks from where they were to the other end of the property. Right then another star moved into alignment. Out of four air ambulance helicopters that operate in the whole state of Victoria, the two that were close enough were told to turn around and come to our aid. This was perfect because time was definitely not on our side. It took them only twenty minutes to get there, which, if you think about it, is amazing because there are only four helicopters covering 237,629 square kilometres of land in Victoria. To put that into perspective, that’s nearly England, Ireland and Switzerland combined.
Once they had landed, it was time to remove my helmet, which was the only thing holding my skull together and stopping it from exploding. I still have that helmet, with a coating of crusty blood on the inside. It’s a token from God on a day in history that could easily have resulted in many lives destroyed.
There were many, many people that saved my life that day. Four paramedics, four police, many doctors, many nurses, dental surgeons, neurosurgeons, neurologists, radiologists, a whole plastics team; the list goes on. But the guys that I truly owe my life to on that dark but sunny, spring day are my mates. The three boys that were there with Sam and me came together and put in some pretty amazing teamwork, and for that I am truly grateful.
The accident wasn’t just brutal on me; Sam had intense damage to his body too. His injuries included several fractured vertebrae and bones, a punctured lung, lacerations and a dislocated knee. He experienced severe blood loss, resulting in seven blood transfusions. Sam has also been recovering both mentally and physically from this accident and has since changed his career path. This accident made him realise how vulnerable and fragile life is and he no longer wanted to waste his time doing anything that didn’t make him happy. He decided his passion was flying aircraft so he got his pilot’s licence and now flies planes for a living. How cool’s that?
Landing In Hospital
Scott does what he wants, when he wants.
- HARRIS FAMILY
Off I fly, straight to Royal Melbourne Hospital to have a spontaneous encounter with some of the best surgeons in the world. Meanwhile, back at the site, everything was surreal. The nightmare quickly became reality for everyone involved. Before the police did their report, they gave my mother a call, informing her that her son had been involved in a motorbike accident and that he was in a coma being flown to the hospital. This is the call that no one wants to get, especially not the world’s most caring mum. Her kids are everything to her and this just added to the cobweb of horror-movie scenes that happened that day.
Mum, otherwise known as Debra, rang my brother-in-law, Cliff, in a panic. She rang him because there was no way she could keep it together long enough to speak with my sister, Nicole. The best chance she had was to talk to anyone other than her own blood. She knew that talking to Nicole would open the waterworks for both of them. To tell her oldest child that her youngest son was fighting for his life would have been too much.
Nicole and Cliff raced over to Mum’s house to find out what was wrong, and then they took Mum straight to the hospital. This was on a sunny Saturday afternoon and my brother, Brett, and father, Vic, were out playing golf. I would sometimes go with them, but not that day.
On the way to the hospital my sister rang Brett to tell him the news. My brother and my dad raced off the golf course mid-round and they too went to the hospital. The Intensive Care Unit, to be more specific. At this point, the family did not know what to think as they didn’t know what state I was