Kirk Saarloos' Dad...

[tcumaniac]

I don't know how many of y'all have been following along via social media, but Kirk's dad was involved in a horse accident a little over a week ago and fractured his neck paralyzing him from the waist down. Based on tweets from Kirk, he had surgery that seemingly went well, and despite being in a lot of pain still, seemed to be on the road towards some state of recovery. Not sure what happened to change that, but it looks like his dad passed away last night.

Super sad deal. Please keep Kirk and the Saarloos family in your prayers. From every account I've ever heard, Kirk is a phenomenal person that we are extremely lucky to have on our staff. Sucks that he is having to go through this.

Here's the history of tweets over the past week and a half:

 

[tcumaniac]

 

[tcumaniac]

 

[BABYFACE]

Damn. Complications from Surgery?

I really didn’t expect this based on the prior tweets.

Prayers out to the family.

 

[GenXFrog]

So sorry to hear.

Thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.

 

[hometown frog]

Wow. Feel terrible for their family.

 

[Westsider]

He looks like someone I’d love to hangout with.

 

[tcudoc]

Sounds more like complications of the injury. It sounds like it was a fairly high injury of the c-spine based on the description. Lots of bad stuff happens with that including spinal shock (low blood pressure because all of your blood vessels become dilated because of loss of the baseline vascular tone that normally causes your blood vessels to stay constricted) and loss of the nerve impulses that normally allow your heart rate to compensate for low blood pressure. In addition, something called autonomic dysreflexia can really mess up a patients normal response to blood pressure swings and sympathetic discharge (fight or flight mechanism is out of whack). In addition, cardiac arrhythmias can occur for many of the same reasons. Spinal cord lesions above T4 are a whole different beast. Once you get up to C3, there is a whole new problem related to innervation of the diaphragm. The higher the spinal cord injury, the worse the prognosis, in general. The fact that he was able to move his arm somewhat makes me think it was in the C7-T1 range, but that is just a WAG.
Prayers for the family. This is all so sad to hear. Riding horses is a not uncommon cause of this type of injury. The distance people fall is significant and it is frequently head first with no time to control the fall. A colleague rides horses a lot and he wears a special spine protective vest that is similar to an airbag. When you are dislodged from the saddle unexpectedly, it inflates and provides stabilization of the spine through the discharge of a CO2 canister. They are expensive, so they are not that prevalent, so I am told.

 

[TxFrog1999]

Terrible news in an already terrible time. So sorry for his family's loss, sounds like he was an amazing man.

 

[Ron Swanson]

Condolences to coach Saarloos and family

Terrible

 

[Frog DJ]

Prayers for the family.

Go Frogs!

 

[Raw Frog]

Prayers raised for the family.

 

[CryptoMiner]

 

[LisaLT]

So very sad. Makes me think of the accident Christopher Reeve had. Doc is right. Falling or being thrown off a horse quite often has serious consequences. RIP Mr. Saarloos.

 

[AroundWorldFrog]

Sounds more like complications of the injury. It sounds like it was a fairly high injury of the c-spine based on the description. Lots of bad stuff happens with that including spinal shock (low blood pressure because all of your blood vessels become dilated because of loss of the baseline vascular tone that normally causes your blood vessels to stay constricted) and loss of the nerve impulses that normally allow your heart rate to compensate for low blood pressure. In addition, something called autonomic dysreflexia can really mess up a patients normal response to blood pressure swings and sympathetic discharge (fight or flight mechanism is out of whack). In addition, cardiac arrhythmias can occur for many of the same reasons. Spinal cord lesions above T4 are a whole different beast. Once you get up to C3, there is a whole new problem related to innervation of the diaphragm. The higher the spinal cord injury, the worse the prognosis, in general. The fact that he was able to move his arm somewhat makes me think it was in the C7-T1 range, but that is just a WAG.
Prayers for the family. This is all so sad to hear. Riding horses is a not uncommon cause of this type of injury. The distance people fall is significant and it is frequently head first with no time to control the fall. A colleague rides horses a lot and he wears a special spine protective vest that is similar to an airbag. When you are dislodged from the saddle unexpectedly, it inflates and provides stabilization of the spine through the discharge of a CO2 canister. They are expensive, so they are not that prevalent, so I am told.

Those vests are probably becoming more common in the motorcycle world, but are basically the same thing. Too many people get significant injuries from a horse accident.

RIP Mr. Saarloos