Live Fast, Ride Faster

Today I finally have the chance to show you a pretty remarkable kid I met 18 months ago.

Click here for the link to my project.



Read further if you’d like to hear more about Ricky, his family, and my take on the whole experience.

Ricky Chang, a local Manassas kid broke his neck riding his bike with his friends a month after his high school graduation. He was performing tricks, much like what you see on X-games and MTV. Performing 360s off stairways, riding railings on the pegs of their wheels. He and his friends are really talented.

Check out some videos of them online.
James Lukas
Ricky
And a Powerbike shop promo (with Ricky, James and others in it)

Unfortunately for Ricky, one trick went a little wrong, and he landed awkwardly, breaking his neck, becoming a quadriplegic. Just like that, his life (and his family’s) was changed forever. Ricky could not breath, eat or drink on his own. His situation appeared grim. This was in July of 2008. I met him in November 2009.

Through a ton of hard work and of course, the advances in medicine at places like the Shepherd Center in Atlanta , Kennedy-Krieger in Baltimore, and the Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center in Fishersville, VA , Ricky has gained strength and movement in his arms, though not yet his hands. He is still paralyzed below the waist.

He has a great group of friends. These are friends that learned how to catheter him and drain his bladder. In time, he had a surgical procedure to permanently place the catheter directly into his bladder, but for months, they were doing it along with Ricky’s mother, and nurses. They routinely drop by, hanging out, shooting the breeze, and when they ride bikes or skateboards, Ricky will sometimes come along and film some of it. So while it might appear as if it is just a nice thing that his friends have stuck around, it’s actually more important than that. Morale, hope and patient recovery are inexorably intertwined (Frederickson, 2001). When you have a patient that feels better about themselves they are more likely to recover. Mood has a distinct effect on the body’s ability to repair itself. So think about it. If you have a friend or a family member in a dire situation (should you be in the unfortunate situation), just being there can actually be enough to help. Ricky’s friends have played a huge part of his recovery process, and Maria and Ricky are incredibly thankful for it.

(above) Ricky's friend James Lukas carries Ricky to his wheelchair, and (below) Kate Baxter gives Ricky a big hug, while they hang out at a cookout over the summer. You can't underestimate the value of friendship in the recovery process.

Maria tucks Ricky into bed, making sure to position him in the best way possible to avoid cramping, spasms and general discomfort.

The financial situation is another aspect of this that is so difficult for many families to handle. Maria quit her job so she could help Ricky at home full-time. She contributed about 40% of the family income at the time. In addition, insurance and Medicare can sometimes be very difficult to deal with. One of the reasons Ricky attends therapy only for 3-4 months at a time with an equally long break in between, is because the insurance won’t pay for continued therapy when there aren’t appreciable benefits (as they see them). No, he isn’t moving his hands yet, but a critical part of the rehabilitation process is maintaining flexibility, muscle tone and bone density. This happens with consistent therapy. So the family has to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on therapy bikes and other equipment to keep at home, so Ricky can try to maintain some sort of therapy schedule. Nursing is also very expensive, and their finding that insurance doesn’t really like to pay for a nurse to come to the house every day. The family has already held one fundraiser, and hopes to hold another soon to help pay for these things. Without veering off topic too much, let me just say that one of my biggest problems with health care as it is, is that it’s geared toward crisis management. If a situation isn’t dire, then insurance doesn’t like to get involved, for the most part. In the case of someone who is paralyzed, maintaining care for them can appear at first glance, to be a waste of time and resources. But then you see that after 5 months of therapy, he regained motion in his arms, and after 2 years, he was transferred to a semi-manual wheelchair. These minor accomplishments are actually huge victories, and can only be done through consistent hard work and determination. Sometimes is just appears as if the insurance bureaucracy stands in the way.

So Ricky and his family will keep working hard, and they’ll keep hoping for the best. He hopes to attend the Arlington Arts Institute in the summer to study film production, and he remains incredibly positive, and hopeful. Having seen some of the incredible advances in medicine , it isn’t hard to imagine that spinal cord repair isn't just around the corner, and Ricky will be able to walk (and ride) again.

If you are interested in helping people like Ricky out please visit:
http://www.ntafund.org/find-a-patient/profile/index.cfm/patient/E7308EC6-FA69-6592-A801ADA1A92FA0DD

The National Transplant Assistance Fund & Catastrophic Injury Program is a non-profit group that helps families like Ricky’s. The financial burden is tremendous, and luckily for Ricky, his family has done ok, despite needing some help. There are many people out there that don’t have the financial ability to pay for any of this and NTAF helps these people.

When I know for sure about Ricky’s fundraiser, I’ll post it, in case you are interested in helping out.

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I shot all the video in this on my Canon 7D. There was a pretty steep learning curve. There was a lot of bad, shaky, blurry video. But a little patience goes a long way. The toughest part of creating a multimedia piece, however, is the audio. It is so damn hard to get nice crisp audio. Especially on a budget. Directional mics, lavalier mics, I tried a few different kinds, and until you’re in there really doing it, you just don’t realize how hard it can be to get solid audio. It’s a skill all unto its own (just like video, and stills…but don’t tell the editors that). So with a lot of trial and a lot of error, I was able to cobble this together into a piece that conveyed what I felt I saw and experienced when I spent 18 months with Ricky and his family.

The editing process is pretty ruthless, though. There are a lot of things left out, that I would have loved to add, but you just can't go on forever. I shot and recorded about 40 GBs worth of video,. The audio and stills probably added up another 20 GBs or so. Let’s just say that I just about lost my mind when it came time to distilling it down. I was a little paralyzed with a “where the hell do I start?” moment.

Naturally, there is an article as well. Kipp Hanley did a great job writing this, and I’m glad he helped out. So I hope the written piece supplements the multimedia, and vice versa.

Ricky keeps his bike and his guitar around for the future...

There are so many other people to thank, as well. Ricky and his family were unbelievably gracious. That is something you can’t underestimate with producing something like this. Without the full support of the people involved, there is just no way to produce anything. There was never any moment they became tired of me being around (or at least they never led on). And with that support and access, you can get some really great moments on film. Kennedy-Krieger in Baltimore and the Woodrow Wilson Ctr, in Fishersville, VA were great to allow me to spend time while they did their thing with Ricky. And last, but not least, the News & Messenger, for just leaving me alone. No one bugged me, and the story just evolved and when I felt I was done, I was done. That was very nice.