Hello everyone. I found my way over through a link on I.C.C.F. I hope you don't mind, but I've cut-and-pasted my intro from there because I just ended an eighteen-hour shift and I'm exhausted.
My name is Mick and I live in Venice, FL. I'm 35, live with my two pugs, work nights as a security guard, and care for elderly parents by day. I spent 29 years doing the Chun and Villari McDojo dance, thinking I was learning something useful. In my first 33 years the only fight I was ever in was when I was in junior high and another kid in my neighborhood punched me in the head for saying that his girlfriend had really hairy forearms. He broke every metacarpal in his right hand. She really did have hairy forearms.
12 February 2007, I was in Haiti working doing construction with a missionary group when I was violently attacked by multiple assailants. They were armed with clubs and chains. Here is an inventory of injuries I sustained:
Concussion.
Skull fractures.
Broken nose.
Two detached retinas.
Type 4 SLAP lesion, right shoulder.
Torn rotator cuff (in 3 places), right shoulder.
Detached biceps tendon, right shoulder.
Torn coracoclavicular ligament, right shoulder.
Torn costoclavicular ligament, right shoulder.
Dislocated humerus, right shoulder.
Broken right clavicle.
Broken left clavicle.
Broken left humerus.
Broken left ulna.
Dislocated and fractured jaw.
Three teeth knocked out; only two could be replaced.
Fracture of C4 and C5 vertebrae, with a ruptured disk in between.
Fracture of T2, T3, T4, and T5, with ruptured disks in between.
Fracture of L4 and L5.
Four broken metacarpals, right hand.
Torn palmar radial carpal ligament, right hand.
Torn illiofemoral ligament, right leg.
Broken patella, right leg.
Torn fibular collateral ligament, right leg.
Torn patellar ligament right leg.
Torn medial patellar retinaculum, right leg.
Torn tibial collateral ligament, right leg.
Illiofemoral hernia, right side.
Fractured pelvis.
Detached bladder.
Dislocated right hip.
Dislocated and broken ribs: 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, right side; 3, 4, and 5, left side.
Broken ribs: 7, 8, and 9, right side; 6, left side.
Broken left tibia.
Fractured calcaneus, right foot.
Fractured navicular, right foot.
Fractured cuneiform, right foot.
Broken metatarsals, 1st through 5th, right foot.
Collapsed lung, left side.
Dislocated thumb, right hand.
Fractured sternum.
Miscellaneous lacerations, abrasions, and contusions.
I was also bitten.
After they were through beating and robbing me, my attackers urinated and defecated on me, and dumped me on a trash heap. I later developed several infections, and double pneumonia.
The worst part, believe it or not, was months of blood tests to find out if I'd contracted HIV or any kind of Hep.
As a consequence, I lost my regular job and both of my part-time businesses, my house, my boat, all but one of my cars, my R.V., and every dime of my savings, and most of my personal belongings. With the exception of my parents, one uncle, and a handful of friends, I have been completely ostracized by my family and social network.
I am recovering slowly.
I am now licensed to CCW in several states, and I won't travel anywhere that doesn't permit CCW. I sold a bunch of heirlooms and my Star Wars collection at a loss just so I could afford to buy Wilson and Les Baer 1911s.
You couldn't pay me enough to go to Haiti again. Also, I don't do charity work for churches anymore.
Subject: Hello from the Colonies. 
Tue 25 Aug 2009, 12:47
