COVINGTON, Ky. — After a motorcycle crash in July 2020, doctors told Dennis Crowder that he had a 1% chance of surviving his injuries.
He took a corner too quickly in Covington nearly one year ago and hit the side of a moving truck. From there, the rest was a blur.
“I remember waking up, and I had a feeding tube down my nose,” Crowder said. “(I was) swelled up all the way up and down my body.”
He broke his elbow and 14 of his ribs, fractured his hip and a bone in his lower left leg. On top of that his heart and left lung were severely damaged.
“They told me with the surgery, that they had to take my lung out and the traumatic stress that I was in that there was less than 1% chance of that surgery,” Crowder said.
The operations were successful, but he still had a long way to go. Crowder credits wanting to be there for his 5-year-old daughter as the motivating factor to help him get back to full health.
UC Health trauma and critical care surgeon Dr. Vanessa Nomellini said if Crowder had been taken to any other hospital, he probably wouldn’t have made it.
“The fact that became, number one, get out of the hospital in a month, that ... of itself is actually surprising,” she said. “And then he actually got out of his facility within about a month or two and kind of walked out, talking and alert and oriented, able to function.”
Crowder said his recovery is ongoing – he still has months of rehabilitation to complete. He has some lingering nerve damage that keeps him from straightening the fingers on his left hand – but he said overall it’s a small price to pay.
