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Home  Articles 97/98 Season Barker recalls fear after accident
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Barker recalls fear after accident |
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Written by Joanne Ireland
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Wednesday, 25 March 1998 |
Lloyd Barker will never forget the sound, that chilling snap of his neck.
But memories of the fear that coursed through his body, the excruciating pain, are slowly fading.
Last night, Barker was introduced to the crowd in Edmonton before a game between the Drillers and his summertime mates, the Montreal Impact.
The Impact took an 8-6 win to move into a tie with the Drillers for the fifth and final playoff spot in the North Division.
Last week, midway through the fourth quarter of the Edmonton Drillers' National Professional Soccer League game in Cincinnati, Barker attempted a bicycle kick.
When he landed on the turf at the Crown Arena, he knew something was seriously wrong. He had collided with a Cincinnati player, snapping his chin down to his chest. The fifth vetebra was dislocated.
"I actually heard a sound that was as if you were breaking biscuits in your hand," he recalled from his hospital room. "I heard it in my neck and it was very clear, I think, because it was so close to my ears."
He could feel numbness in his arms and legs, but could move them.
"I felt tingling, all the effects you do not want to feel having just fallen on your neck," Barker recalled. "I remember whispering - well, it sounded like a scream, but it was just a whisper - to their goalkeeper to call the physio. `Call the physio. Call the physio.'
"Then I just lay there. I tried to lay motionless.
"I was in excruciating pain and I had tremendous fear. I can tell you that much.
"I moved my toes around, flexed my legs before the trainers got to me, and I knew I wasn't paralyzed. But then I thought maybe it could happen on my way to the ambulance, or when I was being put on the board."
Barker was rushed to the Good Samaritan Hospital and wheeled in for X-rays.
"I lay in the room waiting for the results, hoping and praying that he'd come back and say, `We're going to release you. You can go home.' "
Instead, he underwent a CAT scan and, before the night was through, Barker was in traction.
Two days later, Barker was flown to Calgary to undergo a bone fusion. A piece of bone was removed from his hip and a metal plate was inserted during a four- hour operation.
Barker, 27, took his first steps Sunday, a tentative trip through his ward at the Foothills Medical Centre.
Barker will remain in a cervical collar for the next eight to 12 weeks. He hasn't ruled out playing soccer again.
"I'm over the worst part, because now I realize it's just a flip of the coin. I've acknowledged that I'm not going to be paralyzed, that I wasn't paralyzed and as a result of anything I do from here on in, this won't be a factor.
"The doctors are expecting a full recovery and they have said if I choose to play again, I can. That's a long journey from here. I still have a few more rounds to fight. Now, it's the endurance rounds.
"I can tell you I will not take the collar off a day before the 12 weeks is up. I have no intention of rushing back to anything. I will not play soccer again if I do not feel I'm more than 100 per cent.
"I expect to be there, I truly do, but that's a journey away."
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