My name is Lance Z. I am 53 years old and I was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin. During one of the largest snow storms in 20 years in Wisconsin. I married my high school sweetheart in 1972. I have moved to Arizona in 1973, I attended college in Arizona and have been a RN since 1979.I have been married three times and have 3 sons by the marriage with the second wife. I have a cabin near Prescott Arizona and live in Scottsdale Arizona.

My Accident happened on 5/29/2000 .At that time I was working for Merit Behavioral care as a case manager. This company did all the CHAMPUS insurance claims for mental health in our region. My job was to keep in contact with facilities in our region which covered a 16 state area and do reviews with the facilities for our clients for mental health issues. I was up at my cabin near Prescott I was going to take the dogs up the hill for a run before we came home to Scottsdale. I am not sure what happened next, but between What I remember and have been told, I think it went like this. I usually store my ATV at a neighbor s house up there I swerved and skidded into a speed bump. I lost control of the bike. And the bike started to flip as it headed into the bar ditch. Apparently the handle bars hit the base of my neck and the increased force sent me sailing onto a pile of rocks. I think I attempted to move out the way of one of my dogs in a ditch full of rocks. Lucky for me a neighbor heard the bike skid and came to my rescue. When he approached me my chest was thrown on top of the rocks and my neck was hyper flexed in the dirt. I was not breathing; my neighbor carefully aerated my lungs. He knew my neck was most likely fractured and did not want to create further trauma. I began to breathe on my own although my respirations were very irregular and labored He radioed for help and the paramedics were on their way. In the meantime Bob s son Drew had joined him at the accident siteI was flown out of the canyon by helicopter and transported to John C Lincoln Hospital in Phoenix. I have been told I was in a coma for about 6 weeks. In some way it is good that I don t remember any of that time period but that period of time was hard on my wife as she was with me at the Hospital as much as she could yet still work. I was discharged from the hospital and transferred to a skilled facility named Brian s Center. There I had multiple therapies, but was close to home and my wife was there daily. I was there about 2 months. From there I was discharged and was transferred to Meridian Point I was there about 1 month inpatient and another month as an outpatient. I was then sent to a facility named Rehab without Walls I was there November 2000 to May 2001. Then after that time I was discharged home. Though all the therapy and people helping me I continue to have some dysarthia with my speech and use a cane to steady myself while walking. Indeed I was lucky to be alive thru all that. Now days I continue to have speech therapy and go a support group for traumatic brain injury and go to a web site that is for people who have had brain injuries also. This has been very helpful as there are people all over the country that have had issues similar to mine. It is also a good place to get feedback on issues that trouble me and to have others ask for and receive advice about issues that they are having with themselves and how they relate with people close to them

Email Lance