– Where My Brain’s At –
Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor
My Story
How I became a TBI Survivor
Hi, I’m Mikah – a survivor of a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and on my path to recovery. My injury started on Sunday the 31st of May 2020, while at my place of employment in East Idaho.
Before I start with my injury story, let me share a brief background of my life.
My life started in the middle of the 1980s while living my whole life in Silicon Valley, California. At the age of 12, I started building computers and even started repairing them for family and friends. Computers came naturally to me, I understood their inner workings easier than algebra. I loved being able to look at a machine and figure out how to solve the problem in my head before cracking it open. My mind worked with computers and computers worked with my mind. It was as if they were in sync with each other and could communicate on the same level. I started my own business doing computer repair and consulting for various companies in the technology world. I had the opportunity to be a manager in different IT fields, from NOC, Help Desk, Systems Administrator, and even System Support Specialist. My career in the IT field was growing, until 2008 when many positions went crashing down.
At the beginning of 2011, I moved to Idaho to attend college. Even though my natural talent was with computers, I was focusing on my education and a degree in Business Communications. I met my wife in April of 2011 and were married at the end of the year. While in Idaho there weren’t many opportunities in the computer field, I moved from company to company with technology older than myself, repairing them and trying to rub two pennies together to fit old technology into the 21st century. In Idaho, I had to start back at the bottom in the IT field, even with all my experience and knowledge. Idaho was a different world when it came to technology. I had managers who had less experience and knowledge than I had and couldn’t fix an unplugged tower to save their life. It frustrated me to my core, having to listen to them as they went on and on about the importance of pleasing their boss by not overspending and fixing every problem as cheaply as possible. Most of the problems I fixed, were like putting a bandaid on a broken arm and sending them on their way as if I saved their insurance millions of dollars.
In January of 2019, I exceeded the companies to work for in East Idaho, in the IT field and found myself working in the factory field. During my interview for the company I was at, they informed me that I was extremely overqualified for any of their positions, however, needed a job, and they needed employees. I started the new job at a very low position. I was able to move up in the company in 2 months and have a position over other employees. I was considered a “Line Supervisor”, where I was in charge of a particular product that was being processed. I mainly was stationed in front of a computer running reports and watching the “line” from a screen. I was in my element. I was able to finish the reports in a reasonable time and the work, though labor-intensive at times, on the computer work was a breeze.
When I became a Line Supervisor, I also joined the Safety Team to help make sure things were safe in the environment with heavy equipment all-around individuals throughout the facility. I enjoyed the Safety Team, it was looking like many people were wanting to make the place safer and better off for the employees. Until about 8 months of being on the Safety Team that my weekly reports of an unsafe stairwell kept being ignored. It wasn’t until the third week of October 2019 when I fell down the stairs and hurt my shoulder from holding onto the safety railing properly were my reports looked at a little closer. And when I say “looked at”, they magically disappeared as a hard copy and the story of management was no reports had been filed of those stairs being unsafe.
As 2019 came to a close and 2020 was slowly starting up I left the Safety Team officially because I felt my voice and my concerns were constantly and continually overlooked. I went and applied for an internal position as their Business IT Analyst. I was on my 5th interview when the start of April rolled around. That was when Covid-19 hit harder in the country and many companies shut down including the one I was at. The position I applied for was closed off as “it wasn’t in the budget to hire anyone at this time”. The company closed down for six weeks and put all employees on “furlough”.
I returned to work on Friday the 29th of May 2020 where many new changes were made to the process of the line. Best practice and even standard practice for training at this particular company were hands-on to make sure employees are capable to do their job. But this particular day, they trained me, my team lead, and the shift manager verbally for the task that needed to be accomplished every 24 hours. The training went as followed in the production manager’s office.
Production Manager: “Once every 24 hours, the Line Supervisor is to move an oil barrel from one side of the machine to the other side to hook up and let it spray on the equipment.”
Me: “How is this oil barrel supposed to be moved?”
Production Manager: “You wheel it over there.”
Me: “With a dolly?”
Safety Trainer: “Yes a barrel dolly.”
Me: “And is a barrel dolly provided for my line?”
Safety Trainer: “No you have to borrow one from another line.”
Me: “Which is all the way across the building.”
Safety Trainer: “Yes, and then give it back to them.”
Me: “And how much do these oil barrels weigh?”
Safety Trainer: “About 450 to 475 lbs.”
Me: “And this is the best way to go about this job?”
Production Manager: “Yes, we have worked it out and this is the best way it was set up to work.”
The five of us then walked out to the area to see where the oil barrels were and where they needed to be taken to be set up. Each pallet held 4 oil barrels, and you first had to shimmy the oil barrel off the pallet, then get it on the barrel dolly, and then wheel it 75 yards to the complete opposite side to set it up. Why it wasn’t thought of to hook it up where it was, made no sense to me, and I even voiced my opinion to the Production Manager, Shift Manager, Safety Trainer, and Team Leader, because if the equipment wasn’t in the way you could have wheeled it over 20 feet to put it in place. I shared with them that there was a better way to run the line and hook everything up. The Production Manager and Safety Trainer both emphasized that again “it was set up the best way to get the job done”. The Safety Trainer said it was easy to do and the Production Manager agreed. Well both of them were probably around 260 lbs and over 6’2″, whereas I sat at 180 lbs and 5’9″. A single oil barrel almost weighed 3x my weight.
As it was the end of the Production Manager and Safety Trainer’s day and gave a brief 30-minute verbal training with an even quicker tour of where what was and where what went, they left with a “call us if you have any more questions”.
Saturday the 30th of May 2020, I started my shift with the need to move an oil barrel and set it up on my own for the first time. To make sure I did everything correctly, I radioed my Shift Manager and Team Lead to assist. I went to the other side of the plant and retrieved the barrel dolly after asking for permission to move it from its designated area. The three of us carefully shimmied the oil barrel off the pallet and onto the barrel dolly, and two of us wheeled it over the 75 yards to put it into place. It wasn’t bad with the three of us doing it.
Sunday the 31st of May 2020, I was working on my line. Around 10:45 AM I radioed my Team Leader to come help move an oil barrel. When the Team Leader showed up at the area the barrels were held, up on a wooden pallet. We shimmied the oil barrel off the wooden pallet and onto the barrel dolly. I pulled back on the barrel dolly with all my weight, it took three tries to get the barrel to tip properly. I started to wheel the barrel using the barrel dolly over to the location it needed to be. My Team Leader had a clipboard and paperwork in her hands so I didn’t mind trying to wheel the barrel over to the place. It was slower than the day before but managed to get it over to its place.
As I positioned the barrel dolly with the barrel on it, I observed my surroundings and started to place the barrel down. My foot was on the barrel dolly to help lower it slowly. The barrel’s weight with gravity took over and I was launched up hitting my head on the catwalk above me causing me to crumple to the ground. I remember hearing a loud crunch in my left ear before I blacked out. I heard my Team Leader calling to me and radio for the Shift Manager to meet her at the location. As I sat up I was seeing literal stars all around me. I felt so dizzy and nauseous in my stomach. I started to get up from where I was sitting when my Team Leader pushed me down and said something about being hurt and needing to stay where I was. My adrenalin started to kick in and I went into a one-track mindset of needing to finish the task at hand. There and then I went into a quick work mode.
After I was done setting up the barrel I was taken to the team-lead office and had an incident report taken. I was having a very hard time trying to remember the year. In my head, I kept thinking it was 2016 but knew it wasn’t right. So when I needed to put the date on the report, I left it as 5/31/20, not realizing at the time that it was correct. My Team Leader checked my eyes with her phone’s flashlight to see if I might have a concussion, stating that she wasn’t a nurse and that she didn’t know how to properly check. I was then asked if I wanted some Excedrin from my Shift Manager. I took two Excedrin and went on my way.
I texted my wife promptly letting her know I was injured and that I was nauseous and had massive ringing in my ears. She told me to continue to keep her posted and take it easy. I took my first break around 12:00 PM and noted that I was a little fuzzy about what I was doing. Thinking it was the adrenalin wearing off, I no longer put any thought to it.
As my day continued, I noticed that things were running very slowly in my mind and vision. As my second break rolled around, I headed to the break room. My focus was changing from fast to slow and my mind with that same change. I entered the break room and was instantly called back to the floor. I walked back out to the floor and was walking against the wall for stability. My assistant took care of the problem and I turned around to head back to the break room. With the constant ringing in my ears, feeling nauseous and a pounding headache, I wanted to sit down and rest. I went through the first door to the breakroom and rounded the corner. Having little energy left, I leaned against the wall and collapsed to the floor. It was then reported to me later that I had a Tonic-clonic seizure where I was violently convulsing on the floor with blood coming out of my mouth and nose. I was also informed that my seizure had lasted over a few minutes.
I awoke in an ambulance dazed and confused as to why I was there. They started asking me all sorts of questions, Who I was, How old I was, Who the President was, What year it was, What month and day it was, and Where I was. I don’t believe I got many of them correct. I was wheeled into the ER and placed in my own room. I felt like I was by myself for hours and didn’t quite know what was going on. My wife showed up and helped fill in the blanks I was facing. The ER doctor has me stay overnight to be monitored and make sure I have no more seizures. I am released the next morning and I make an appointment with my primary care.
Thank you for reading – To learn more about My Recovery, please click the “My Recovery” button to go to that page.