Cade Copeland (Taxslayer911's son)

[MX154]

Kurt Copeland's (TaxSlayer911 on here) son crashed yesterday and fractured his T5 vertebrae. Went into surgery last night.

As of this morning :: "Quick update on this morning : Cade seems to be showing improvements in his strength, motion, and feeling over his pre-surgical condition this morning. Still waiting for the follow-up visit from the surgeons but the ICU staff seemed to be excited by his apparent improvement. We are, of course, cautiously optimistic. Thanks to each and everyone of you for your messages, phone calls, and most of all your prayers!"


Heal up quick Cade!

[mroark]

Kurt's post says Cade received 6 screws, 2 rods, and 1 cross bridge. That sounds like quite a bit of hardware! Cade, we all wish you a quick and complete recovery.

[SG Berm book]

Will be thinking of the Copeland's. Keep us posted please!

[TaxSlayer911]

First of all, I want to thank everybody for their continued thoughts and prayers. The support we have received from our motocross family has been awesome, overwhelming, and needed over the past week.

On Sunday, February 13th, Cade was involved in a first turn incident at Dixon MX at Portales, NM. He hit the bike in front of him and high-sided then got run over while on the ground. At first, nothing seemed to be serious and after being checked out quite thoroughly by the track paramedic Cade even got up and walked back to the hauler. Knowing that his day was done, Cade layed on the ramp while I loaded up everything and people came by to check on Cade. In no particular hurry, we finally left the track about 30 minutes after the accident. Cade was sore and in a little bit of pain, but nothing alarming. However, about when we reached the stateline, Cade began complaining that his pain was increasing and then that his legs weren't working right and starting to tingle.

I realized when I looked down at the speedo that I was running 85 while pulling my trailer, so I just pulled over into the ditch, unhooked the trailer, and continued to the hospital at a much higher rate of speed. It is amazing how easy a Duramax will run and hold triple digits. Jus’ sayin’… Once at the hospital, they did do all of the standard spinal injury protocols, including the massive steroid doses for spinal swelling and a full spinal MRI. About 9pm that evening, they put Cade into the ICU unit and told us that they thought the numbness and loss of motion in his legs was mostly due to swelling since it happened after the incident like it did, but that the MRI might show something else. In ICU, Cade had already regained his feeling and control in his legs, so this seemed to give credence to what the doctors had been saying about the swelling. They even allowed Cade to sit up a bit in the bed to try to eat some soup and watch TV. However, within 15 minutes of elevating his head, everything below his navel started going numb and he began losing control of his legs again. He could not tell which toes the Drs were touching and he could only lift his hells a few inches off the bed. With this happening and the preliminary results of the MRI available, the decision was made to do surgery to fuse the fractured T5 vertebra with the T4 and T6 above and below it.

They finally got the surgery done a little after 3am and said that things were a bit worse than they thought it would be once they opened up his back. There was actually a chunk of the T5 broken off and it was free-floating and the T4 and T6 showed signs of damage, too. So, they decision was made to extend his fusing to the T3 and T7 which took 2 rods, 6 screws, and 1 cross plate. Back in ICU, they were checking Cade out for shift change at 6am and they asked Cade if he could lift his legs. He promptly kicked the nurse in the forehead! Only 3 hours after the surgery and Cade could lift both of his legs and could distinguish where the Drs were touching him on his feet. I took this as a very good sign.

They cautioned us that Cade still had a long way to go and would most likely be in ICU at least until the weekend, if not longer. However, Cade was sent to a regular room on Wednesday afternoon and began physical therapy soon after he got settled in. His progress has been, simply, miraculous. When I left the hospital last night, Cade was running around all over his floor with the assistance of a walker! Now, I have just found out that Cade my get to come home today!

Without a doubt, your prayers have helped and it looks like Cade is on the fast track to recovery. I know that he still has a long road ahead of him, but the surgeon said yesterday that with the progress he has shown, he told us that we could expect a full recovery over the next year!

Amongst all of this joy for us, there is one lingering sadness. This injury is going to be a career-ender for Cade. While his mother and I were pretty sure that we couldn’t take the chance on going through something like this again, the final word came from the things his surgeons told us. The MRI indicated that Cade had broken his neck before. We had no idea. Cade had broken his T5 vertebra before this time. We had no idea it was broken. We had taken him to the ER when this happened and the Dr told us then that he had “bruised” 3 vertebra and that he would be fine after taking a couple of weeks off. Cade had broken his back before down lower than this T5 injury. We had no idea. Cade also has a bulged disk in his lower back that could have erupted with his next big fall or a bad jump landing. Again, we were clueless. While I realize that makes us sound like the worst parents in the world, those of you who know Cade know exactly why we didn’t know it. Cade could walk away from the worst wrecks you ever saw. He was nominated TWICE by different track paramedics as the toughest racer that they have ever known. With the help of a big gust of wind, Cade overjumped a 100 foot tabletop at Tulie MX a couple of years ago and I just knew when I saw him land and crash that he was going to be gravely injured. But, by the time I got to him on a “borrowed” quad, he was already sitting on his running bike and arguing with the paramedic because he didn’t want to get off and be checked out. To the amazement of everybody, he seemed to be basically unscathed. In fact, he rode some of the best races he ever had up to that point the next day.

But, the reality of the situation was that each one of these incidents have added up and Cade’s spine is now very vulnerable to more of these types of injuries. Until the final MRI results came in, I really had some trouble believing that a first turn incident that didn’t even seem all that violent had broken his back. But, the injuries all served to weaken his spine and it didn't take that much to break it this time. Now that I know the score, it is necessary for us to quit motocross. Sad, but it wasn’t even that tough of a decision, really.

Thanks again for all of the support and prayers you have given us this week. Please continue as we are by no means out of the woods yet.


Kurt

[ascend75]

Glad to hear he is going to make a full recovery!

[ktm300hater]

Im glad to hear he is going to be ok, very awesome!!

[Kasberg187]

Glad to hear of his recovery, but we will miss you all at the track. I can't imagine a race without the Copeland family.

[crash617]

As a parent of a young motocrosser i beleive you made the right decision.
Get out while the gettins good. You and Cade will be missed at the track.
God Bless

[SG Berm book]

That's great to hear - thanks for the update, Kurt! Best wishes to Cade and his bright future.

On a side note: As Cade's father, mechanic and mentor... I commend your Sponsorship-Exposure efforts you obviously valued greatly during Cade's run in the sport. I wish more families took it as serious as you did!

[track_momma]

My thoughts and prayers go out to all of you. I know how hard it is when your child gets hurt and the heartache you feel. Stay strong!

[TaxSlayer911]

That's great to hear - thanks for the update, Kurt! Best wishes to Cade and his bright future.

On a side note: As Cade's father, mechanic and mentor... I commend your Sponsorship-Exposure efforts you obviously valued greatly during Cade's run in the sport. I wish more families took it as serious as you did!

Thanks, Shand!

I really valued the things that Cade and I did together as a team and I was trying always to teach him that anything worth doing was worth doing the right way. This next week, Cade and I will be working on letters to all of Cade's sponsors filling them in on our new situation and thanking them for their years of continuous support. As you can see, anything worth doing is also worth concluding in the right way.

Now, Cade and I just have to find something else that we can do together. I thank God that him and I both have that opportunity after last weekend!

[TaxSlayer911]

Glad to hear of his recovery, but we will miss you all at the track. I can't imagine a race without the Copeland family.

Yeah, um, that is kinda hard for me to imagine, too, Michael. We have raced for 7 full years and the people who know us know that we usually only took one weekend off a month during that whole run. I guess with all out new-found spare time, I'll just have to come over and help you co-promote the Sunbelt Series...

[MX154]

Don't throw in the towel just yet Kurt! Keep at least one bike and let Cade come ride off-road with us sometime. More relaxed and riding your own pace without having to worry about getting blindsided or getting landed on. If you want to just cruise you can, and if you want to haul ass you can do that too!

It'll definitely be a bummer not having y'all around racing Sunbelt this year.

[TaxSlayer911]

Don't throw in the towel just yet Kurt! Keep at least one bike and let Cade come ride off-road with us sometime. More relaxed and riding your own pace without having to worry about getting blindsided or getting landed on. If you want to just cruise you can, and if you want to haul ass you can do that too!

It'll definitely be a bummer not having y'all around racing Sunbelt this year.

It has as much to do with medical necessity to quit as it does with my reluctance to put him out there again. He has had so many small hits and injuries that the tendons and ligaments in his spine are loose and weaker than they should be. This makes him much more succeptible to serious injuries from this point on.

In some ways, I grateful that this happened in what was really a relatively mild accident. Instead of the spinal cord being severed by the unstable vertebra, it was compromised in a way that gave us the warning signs yet the surgery was able to correct. Without this incident, we might have kept going and then the results of a later missed jump would likely have been far more tragic.

We will make some appearances at the Sunbelt this year. We are all still fans of the sport. However, the reality is that it appears Cade has dodged a big bullet this time and likely wouldn't the next time. We all understand that and, though saddened, we walk away knowing that it is the only wise thing to do. It doesn't make it easy, but after what we went through this past week, it is not as difficult as one might think.

[mroark]

I understand and respect your decision, Kurt. All of us at WTMX would like to wish both you and Cade the best of luck in the future.