Motocross crash survivor was 'minutes from death'

A WANGANUI man who almost died when he ripped his spleen loose in a motocross accident, yesterday thanked Wanganui Hospital staff for saving his life.
At 10.20am on March 11 Ray Dittmer was riding his second race in the Wanganui Motorcycle Club summer series at Fordell, when his bike did a "kicker'' on one of the jumps.
The back wheel flipped right over his head and hit the ground hard and kept on flipping ? causing Mr Dittmer, who was still clinging to his bike, to hit the handlebars with the same force.
"At first I thought I was winded and then it took about 10 to 13 minutes to get to my feet, but I wasn't really getting any better," he said.
Soon afterwards his friend Chris Barry came over to his trailer to see how he was.
By 10.45am he was driving Mr Dittmer to hospital suffering pains in his chest and abdomen.
He was vomiting and passed in and out of consciousness on the way.
At 11.15 they arrived at Wanganui Hospital's Accident and Emergency, where Mr Dittmer was put in a wheelchair, passing out as soon as they passed the doors.
Emergency Department director Athol Steward said from after this, things moved fast.
Mr Dittmer was suffering repeated "blind spots'' or lapses of consciousness.
"He was bleeding very profusely internally from his injuries and his blood pressure was dropping," Mr Steward said.
Mr Dittmer was assessed by the triage nurse on arrival and soon afterwards the doctor on duty had diagnosed him with internal bleeding probably caused by a ruptured spleen.
Mr Dittmer was then given fluids, blood and oxygen to buy him time' and the on-call surgeon was told to prepare for theatre.
From "door to skin'', the whole process took only 40 minutes, Mr Steward said.
Mr Dittmer came to again to find his belly being shaved. "I was getting a bit frisky. The pain got so intense I kept asking them to cut me up," he said.
By then he was bleeding so much his belly had began to distend like a pregnant woman's, as he emptied almost his entire volume of blood ? five litres ? into the abdominal cavity, Mr Steward said.
"They opened (him) up; he had a huge amount of blood, which they evacuated and (they) found he'd wrenched his spleen almost completely off all of the blood vessels," he said The next bit was easy.
"The surgeon just had to remove the spleen and stop the bleeding ? the handlebar did half of his job," he said.
Mr Steward had only praise for Wanganui Hospital staff as they had done everything right.
"This was a life-saving dash to theatre which needed extra teamwork and co-operation. Any delay would have cost this guy his life, he was literally minutes from dying," he said.
After the surgery Mr Dittmer remained in hospital for another week and yesterday was still feeling only "about 50 percent'' of his usual self.
He still found it hard to realise how close his call had been, he said.
"I didn't feel that close to dying, but the more I talk to the doctors ? it gets scarier all the time," he said.
A motocross fan since he was 15, Mr Dittmer had put this bike in storage for "at least six months'' so he could recover.
"My boys are still racing. I'll just put a bit of time and effort into them and see how I go," Mr Dittmer said.