Introduction

Let me start at the beginning. I was born on 19th of October 1984 in Ljubljana. Following a few moves, my family settled in Ig on the edge of the Ljubljana moors. After finishing primary school I attended Vegova high school and then it was off to FRI (Faculty of Computer and Information Science). Well, I’m now only a couple of exams away from graduating. I have had an interesting and not particularly hard life. Of course during ones youth there will be hardship now and then, but that’s all part of growing up. Even while I was still in primary school I had hiked and climbed hills and mountains. (all thanks to Jožica and Stanko: THANKS!).

Later on I fell in love with rollerblading and ice-skating, of which I also became an instructor for children and adults. In between I also tried my luck with cycling (destinations such as Krim, the coast…), and ran quite a few kilometres on (both of) my feet.

Gradually I came to realize that I needed to earn some money. After student work for Comtron (computer servicing), Mega Let (system administrator) and Prometej (system administrator), I found regular employment with Oxylus, where I programmed internet pages.

As we both like to snowboard, my girlfriend Zala and I booked a holiday in France before New Year 2009. I had even bought new bindings and snowboard boots for maximum enjoyment.

Then a new chapter of my life begins:
It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, 17th January 2009. I was returning from Maribor, where I was visiting a friend. We had played a game of pool and were reviving old memories of our time spent together at the seaside some years back. At that point I did not know that in the next 25 minutes my life would change forever. I called my father to tell him I’d be home for lunch and started towards Ljubljana. Just before the second motorway exit for Slovenska Bistrica the car started to act up and all of a sudden the back of the vehicle sank. I discover that I have a flat tyre. I pulled over onto the emergency lane and go through my options: change the tyre here with cars and trucks racing past at 140 km/h or call AMZS (Auto Moto Union of Slovenia), as I am a member, and let them properly designate the area and do the job faster. After an hour of waiting an AMZS truck pulls up behind me, man jumps out, we change the tyre, pack the rest into my car and step over to his truck to deal with the paperwork.

I guess you are all familiar with the good feeling you get when you finally sign off for something. I know I was, before the crash...

Until the crash..

A person is not even aware at the time. I know I was clenching my teeth when flying through the air. On my face I felt glass and warmth. It was as if riding a rollercoaster when it begins to drop, when the speed makes everything shake. And then BOOM, onto the snow, two metres behind the railings. You open your eyes, see the sky, the sun blinds you, you feel relieved that the shaking and falling have stopped, you look down and capture the moment your ankle and foot wearing your new shoe fly overhead and land two metres bellow you, shake a little and then stop. One does not know how to react; should I pick it up and hope that they will be able to save it? No, at that moment one just lies there. I imagined: “what have I done wrong, why me”. Only later did I look down again and saw the open thigh and mauled flesh. One would think that what lies under the skin is red, blood, but it is not… it was yellow; I presume it was fat tissue, which had once protected my leg from cold… I took hold of my thigh, the feelings were weird. How is it like, when you can still feel your toes, but are unable to move them? You are looking at them, but they do not respond. “They’re too far”, I said to myself. “Wait for someone to come, everything will be all right.” In that moment the first eyewitness came running over. A middle-aged man with a beard and dark hair. His first question was: “Are you OK?” Hehe, I can understand him, what else would you ask someone with half of his thigh squashed? I answered him that I was, and that should try saving my foot. The man looked at me and with a sombre tone he said: “That’s not looking good, lad!” “Oh, well, I thought, “he’s not a doctor… You watch all the things they can do on the Discovery channel, sure I’ll still have a foot…”

“Call my father”, I told him. The man looks at me and asks me where my cell phone is. I couldn’t feel it in my pocket; I look around a bit and spot it next to the railings, right where the AMZS truck was standing before. Now all there was left were heaps of glass and plastic. I pointed to him; he jumps and gets it for me. I type in my father’s number and tell the man to tell them to come pick me up in Maribor. Ah, how overoptimistic one can get. My father was trying to verify which car was involved in the accident, not believing it was me. When I heard the man speak of a black Alfa I screamed out that it is me and that they should come get me.

The man then calls an ambulance and so another 15 minutes of my life begin. The feelings and thoughts, which were engulfing me at the time, when lying on my back in the snow, the sun blinding me, there were screams, requests, I was cold, afraid to look at my leg, and there were astonished faces behind the windscreens of vehicles driving by. The one I remember most clearly was a little girl, she must have been around 10 years old, and how she was pressed against the car window and was watching me. I saw her eyes, how they scanned my mauled body, my ankle and then stopped at my face, which was probably showing signs of pain, disappointment, fear, sadness… I feel sorry that she had to see at such a young age, see how life can be cruel, how a driver’s mistake can turn out fatal…

Rushing past was a young man with a slight cut on his forehead, screaming, no, not screaming, wailing for an answer: “what were you doing there, why didn’t you get out of the away, why didn’t you go behind the fence”. He was pacing up and down, repeating these questions. I could not answer him; I had too many problems of my own. In between other questions popped up, asking if I was still there, that I should hang on, that everything will be OK, that the ambulances are on their way.

I hear the first siren; I tried to turn towards the way from where it would arrive, but I could not. I was stuck to the ground with pain! The pain slowly crept its way into the leg, the adrenalin started to wear off, the veins were beginning to widen and released the blood to flow into other parts of the body. The nerves were starting to give out signals; probably they were even more confused than I was. There, where there once was a leg of a cyclist, a runner, a rollerblade instructor, there was nothing but a bloody yellow bump of nothing. Well, the first lights were those of the police. Sooner after came more, this was an ambulance, or was it the fire department? I could not know, there was so much jumping going on around me, around the man under the truck. It was one big muddle!

One of the ambulances had stopped at a collision sight of two vehicles 100 m in front of me. The man went to wave and yell to them that he has a problem over here. “Problem?!” I though…, I really did become a problem. Slowly one realizes that there is going to be a problem later on. That everything is not alright. The first paramedics arrive, check me over, and then they check the guy under the truck. “I’ll have to reanimate over here, we need help!” is what I heard. Oh, where have I come to? Will this nightmare end? Have I woken up too soon from a fictitious reality? The matrix? Two powerful hands grab me and shake me: “Hold on a little bit longer, lad, they’re here now!” I began losing consciousness. “I’m fed up of playing this game, I want to go home.” “I’m going to prick you in your left arm, lad, stay still.” “Oh, now they’re going to start pricking me as well?!” I thought. From an early age I had had a phobia about things entering my body. I’m lying in the snow, not able to move my toes, and they want to prick me?! Oh, well, what can I do, it’s not like I can defend myself. They start asking me if I can feel my arms, if I feel my legs… LEGS! I mumble and move all four limbs, believing that I only moved my arms.

After a check through they fitted me with a collar and covered me up with some shiny material. I was cold; I still get the shivers if I think of that cold, and how it slowly creeps its way right to the heart, to the lungs. I could feel the cold spread from the needle in my arm to my shoulder. Uncomfortable, really. “One, two, three”, bam, one more swing and I was on the stretcher. “We’re losing him!” from the background. Mixed voices everywhere. I was fading away. I felt warm; everything was swinging, like the times I had spent on the sailing boat (thank you Roman and Meta!). A firmer grip, a tilt, and I was in the ambulance. I see two more people climb in behind me. “Can I cut up your T-shirt, mate? We have to get to you…” someone asks me. “Yeah, you just cut away,” I replied and bam, I was gone.

Coma

I woke up from an artificial coma 5 days after the accident. A woman doctor was sitting next to me, holding my hand: “Anže, wake up, can you hear me?” I open my eyes and again the white light. After some blinking my sight sharpens and I can see the person in white. Am I dead? Am I alive? Enough of pretence; I was ALIVE! The doctor asks me if I remember what had happened. I must have nodded, as she immediately informs me that I have lost my right leg. I was not concerned with that at that point. I was somewhere, someone nice was beside me, and I was warm. I had plenty of time for the realization of my loss. They moved me to a different room, where in came the nurses, did what they do and left.

Then I was left alone.

My view of the bellow stopped at a bar that was placed on top of me from the waist down. My arms did not function, when I look to see why, I realize that I have a lot of tubes stuck in my body. I even had one up my nose. One want to resolve what is going on, what is what, why is what. The arms start to move a bit, I can feel my fingers; I manage to clench them into a fist. Progress… My head, neck, slowly it all returns. I notice the wounds on the knuckles of my right hand. OK, good… and my legs,… prickliness in my right “leg”… nothing… I try again, nothing… my left leg… I can feel my toes, the big toe moves, I try lifting it... painful agony, a cramp and prickliness… “We’ll try it later” I comfort myself.

Where in fact am I? I slowly look around… first vertigo hits me. Next comes the pain in my neck. I realize I’m in a room full of peeping and hissing sounds. A nurse comes over, asks me something, I nod… alone again.

Girlfriend? Family? Where are they? But I called them… I start losing consciousness… The pains begin to cease… a very comfortable feeling. I look at the clock: ten past four. Ah, weird time. And then a surprise… two familiar faces appear in front of me, two sourly smiling faces. Sister, girlfriend… here they are! I point out that they’re late… A hug, another hug, a kiss, fragrant hair, I’M ALIVE! A conversation followed, more hugs, tears, tears of joy from my side, perhaps a tear of sadness from their eyes. “Ok, we’re going to send dad and mom in, be right back.” In comes mom, in comes dad… red eyes is what I notice first. A smile… relief. Again hugs, kisses, happiness.

Zala later explains the situation to me; where I am, who I am, why I am and also what I do not have… Well, she mentioned that don’t have a leg, but I could still move my knee. I stopped asking, I was tiered. Zala moves to some friends’ in Maribor so she can be closer to me and comes to comfort me everyday. The hospital staff were amazing. We talked a lot and joked a bit too. Soon I returned to being the Anže I was before the accident. I became communicative; I told them a lot of things and they to me. Zala was with me everyday, even longer than was allowed. She was my support, she was what I needed. Tears, laughter and sadness, smiles, bitter and out of joy, and of course the feeling that she hadn’t left me. My family, everyone came to encourage me, to give me strength, hope and love. They were beside me, when I needed it most. They drove 150 km there and back everyday, just so they could hold me for those 15 minutes. Father brought me news from Ljubljana, the condition my car was in, the situation at work… However, that did not worry me at that point… what concerned me most was the fact that I could not move my knee… Sometimes I could, at other times it was completely stiff, uncontrollable. Well, the day before last I mention to Zala that I had been moving the knee a lot that day and that I feel it will soon start to obey me again… Zala looks at me and tells me with a sad voice that I don’t have a knee, even worse, all I was left with was7 cm of my leg…

After ten days of recovering in UKC Maribor, they moved me nearer to home, to Klinični center in Ljubljana (central hospital). It was there that I also slowly began moving my left leg, which had a broken thighbone. I saw what the remainder of my right leg looked like, and began moving that as well. A lot of strange feelings, prickliness, but I was determined that this would not deter me. I was steady, I was certain that it was not as bad as it seemed. Move on, I told myself. If you’ve been on Triglav three times, cycled to the coast, taught a crowd of cheerful kids to rollerblade in the scorching sun for 6-7 hours, then even this won’t stop you. The first visitors began to drop by; friends, relatives and acquaintances. One of them was also the person who poured three tones and 700 kg of hope and strength into me (Zvone, THANK YOU!). The truck driver who had changed my life for ever also dropped by.

Something new every day..

Each day there was something new. In between another complication arose, because of which I had to go under the knife again, but it got sorted in the end. The nurses were awesome once again (Nevenka, Mirnesa, Alma,… THANK YOU), the physiotherapists also, anyway, after just over a month they dismissed me from hospital and I could go home for a week, before my admission to the Institute for Rehabilitation of the Republic of Slovenia or in short: Soča. After a week there I had gone through all the tests for being able to drive a car, had gone through all the bureaucracy, adapted the car and was mobile again.

Then I began to inquire how and what comes next. The prices, time schedules, accessibility. I received a lot of information from Zvone and realized that I will need quite a bigger sum of money if I were to become more active. There was talk of 40.000 €. I also found out that a cheaper type of prosthetic leg was available.

A leg for 20.000€: http://www.ottobock.com/cps/rde/xchg/ob_com_en/hs.xsl/1913.html
An even more expensive leg: http://www.ossur.com/bionictechnology/powerknee

We received an initiative from Miškolin kindergarten to start collecting bottle tops and my mother decided that she would organize a campaign for collecting plastic bottle tops of plastic bottles, yoghourts, cleaning detergents, etc… The campaign lifted off: a huge number of people joined; kindergartens, primary schools, universities, labour organizations, rectories, restaurants, pubs and more and more. Additional information and a detailed list can be found here.

The news of the astronomical sum of money needed for such a leg also found its way to my father’s work colleagues, who collected over 700 € out of their own savings and donated it to me. Football Club Olimpija also contacted me and donated the entire earnings from their match against Aluminij and a share of ticket money. A running account was also opened with the Red Cross, where donations by individuals and companies are coming in. I give special gratitude to these donors. Here you can see the list of donors, where I am trying to gather everyone who has helped me.

Recently I also had three broadcasts on television (Tednik on TVS1, the TV programme Pomagajmo si on TV Koper and in news on 24 ur, 24.5. 2009, also an article in the Večer newspaper, Jana newspaper and Slovenske novice). People’s reaction after the add in 24 ur was enormous. We gave my mother’s number as the contact number, and the next day she told me that here phone was ringing constantly for a good couple of hours. People replied to the call for help by collecting bottle tops and some also wanted to offer help financially.

Let me tell you that out of 2000 Slovenes who want to help me, there is one who unfortunately does not want to help. Even to the contrary, he strives towards destroying my hopes, destroying my good will. They do this by different means; the most common is to publically spread lies about me and my campaign. Many trip over the fact of thinking that I will receive compensation in any case. However, they are so uneducated and narrow-minded that they do not know that I am not only one form and two signatures away from compensation. These are battles that I will have to fight with the courts, lawyers and the insurance company. At the beginning I was hoping to get some resources from the title of my insurance in the span of 2 years, but the more I ask around, the longer the dates for compensation get. A gentleman, who had a similar accident to mine with similar consequences, has not been able to get compensation after five years. Even worse, all the things that he needs for his rehabilitation and a different way of life he has to pay for himself and the insurant’s company is going to “compensate” him for it in the end. But we all know very well how expensive medical instruments can be..

I have got the same problem. Must I wait five more years without an active, normal life, without the things I use to do? Maybe longer?

My world has in any case been turned upside down. It takes me three-times longer to get down a flight stairs than a normal person. And now I am getting e-mails and signatures, saying how I am faking it, how I have already received some huge sum of compensation money, how a thousand others are far worse off than me. Yes, I know, I am “only” missing a leg, but I don’t just sit around feeling sorry for myself and write ugly things about other people in the public media. The thing is, I’ve merely decided to stand on both of my feet again sooner than others might have wished me to. Is that so wrong?

They also reproach me that I never mention the gentleman from AMZS who came to my aid. Here again is shown the shallowness and the mean narrow-minded wish for the mudslinging of a public worker, not stopping to think that I have been in contact with the deceased’s family from the day of my dismissal from hospital and that perhaps they do not wish for the gentleman to be mentioned in public? They are aware of the fact that vultures, scoundrels, jealous people will want to tare up everyone who is publically presented and has more media fame than they have.

Fortunately my girlfriend, family and friends are always by my side and remind me that “Slovene enviousness” is simply something that goes along with it.

As I explain to everyone: if there will be enough money, I will by the best prosthetic leg I can find (the more expensive one offers me a few more features than the one for 20.000 €). I wish to live an active life; I wish to snowboard again, to cycle, next year I wish again to run the Ljubljana three-person race. To do all these things I need a good and unfortunately an expensive prosthetic leg.



- It is possible to donate money to my personal account (for smaller amounts): SWIFT: KSPKSI22XXX; IBAN: SI56 3400 0101 0792 162 at Sparkasse d.d..

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