MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WMBF) – One man had the chance to thank those who saved his life after a serious crash landed him in the hospital for over three months.
Chris Vickers reunited with his medical team at Grand Strand Medical Center on Thursday where they all celebrated the progress he has made in his healing journey.
In June 2023, Vickers was riding his motorcycle on Highway 905 on his way to buy some peaches. He said he doesn’t remember buying any peaches, instead, the first thing he remembers is waking up in a hospital bed.
“When I woke up here in the hospital, my brother and wife were beside me and said, ‘It’s been six days, you were in an accident,’” Vickers recalled.
He woke up with seven broken ribs, a shattered finger, broken thumb, tibia, femur, and his fibula was broken in two places.
Vickers learned from others how the accident happened.
“I was nine and a half miles up the road on 905 at Granger Road, a car, apparently a small SUV, had stopped to make that left-hand turn and I guess they said I was traveling too fast to stop and clipped the left side, left rear bumper,” Vickers said. “Just clipped that enough that it bent up my front wheel and locked up my front brakes.”
Vickers said a picture was shown to him of the crash, where he also learned he had landed six feet from his bike after being thrown on impact.
Doctors inserted a metal rod and performed a 13-hour surgery to start the recovery journey for Vickers’s right leg. They took skin from his back and left thigh to rebuild and heal the limb.
Vickers was released from the hospital on September 22nd, 2023, which was 95 days after he was initially admitted.
On Thursday morning, Vickers went to each of the rooms he had been treated in during his hospital stay. He also got to hug the people who saved his life.
“There was a lot of people that came in my room, nurses and doctors, and everybody like I said, respiratory came in, they always checked my breathing, checked my trach,” Vickers said. “I think the whole time I was in ICU I didn’t even have to push the button, all the nurses always checked on me.”
Vickers has been married to his wife, Shelley, for 23 years.
She said as soon as she found out about the accident, she was numb, but the doctors and nurses at Grand Strand Medical Center changed that.
“I just knew he was gonna make it with these people, with everybody on his side, and the phenomenal doctors and nurses here, I knew he was gonna make it,” said Shelley Vickers. “I never broke down because I knew in my heart he was gonna make it.”
Physical therapists told Vickers it would take him two years to walk again, but just about a year later he is already taking short walks using a cane.
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