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On June 4, 2001 I was in a car accident in which I was cut off by another driver and the front passenger's side of my truck hit the rear driver's side of her minivan. My truck flipped onto the driver's side and my elbow scraped on the asphalt at about 50 m.p.h. My truck slid for about 150 feet before finally stopping. I couldn't move my arm and it was bleeding like a son of a bitch. The first picture is a collection of pics taken just prior to (top 3) and just after (bottom 3) the resulting surgery. The skin on my elbow was completely torn away. A piece of skin was moved to cover my elbow and a skin graft (the weird criss-cross part) was taken from my thigh to fill in the hole. Now I have a really nasty scar.

The next pics show the healing progression. June 19, 2001- most of the stitches were removed. June 28, 2001- healing up. June 28, 2001- the skin graft donor area healing up.

I was in a splint for a few weeks. After that, I couldn't straighten my arm for a few weeks but I could bend it all the way.

After it was mostly healed I noticed when i leaned on my left arm i felt a stinging pain. I asked the doctor about it and he decided it was a cyst and he said he was going to remove it. I underwent a 45 minute procedure to remove the cyst. I was awake the whole time because they used a local pain killer. It turns out there was a piece of glass left over from the accident. He didn't say anything but I could tell he was disappointed about not finding it in the first place. A couple of weeks later I got the stitches out from that. I wish I took pictures of that but i forgot. Well that's all I can remember for now.

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ED: That is a hell of a scrape and we are glad you are healing well. My brother-in-law has a theory about women in minivans. Without going into the details of the theory we'll just say that your experience only strengthens his position.

Anyway, everyone be careful on the roads, most wrecks at 50 MPH don't end this happy.

Photos:
Before and after surgery- 06/04/01
Healing 1- 06/19/01
Healing 2- 06/28/01
Scar
Donor area- on the leg
Truck- bang