Mark Ortiz in the hospital - hit and run accident
Submitted by jimstaro on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 8:30pm
Passing an E on from 'Charlotte Pink', send your good wishes to Mark as he recovers!
Dear friends of Mark,
You might have heard by now that Mark Ortiz was involved in a serious
hit-and-run accident late last night (Tuesday November 7).
As you will probably know, Mark is an avid bicyclist and he was riding
his back home at about 10 pm, on his way back from attending a meeting
at UNC Charlotte.
A driver hit him from behind somewhere on Roberta Rd. in Harrisburg.
The driver just drove on and left Mark laying by the side of the road.
Apparently Mark laid there unconscious for quit some time before
Concord Police found him. He was immediately brought to our local
hospital in Concord, where they decided that his condition was too
serious for them to handle. He was then transported to the trauma unit
of Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.
We visited Mark there today.The good news is that Mark's life is not in danger and that he's in
stable condition. The bad news is that he has a lot of fractures. We
know of at least 4 broken ribs, several broken vertebrae and a broken
pelvis. The road to recovery will be long. The surgeon at CMC assured
us that they "will pull him through". Mark was awake and spoke to us
for a while, he's very beaten up, but he seemed pretty clear minded.
He was interested in the election results, so we updated him on those.State Highway Patrol has possession of Mark's bike right now. We
believe they're holding on to it for evidence purposes. The silly
thing is that Mark was very concerned about the fate of his bike :-)Mark is in the trauma intensive care unit on the 5th floor of the
hospital. You can visit this unit a few times a day for half an hour
at a time. Visitation hours are 2 - 2.30 pm, 5 - 5.30 pm and 8.30 - 9
pm. His bed number is 5410. Since this unit is just one big room with
10 beds in it, they only allow visits when every patient in the whole
unit is in stable condition. This means that visitation hours
sometimes get delayed and even get canceled now and then. I would also
ask not to go there with a big group of people.Visiting Mark will of
course get a lot easier once they move him to another room and out of
the trauma unit. We will keep you posted when that happens.In the meantime I have set up an e-mail account that people can use to
send your wishes to Mark: Get Well Mark
I urge anyone that knows Mark to send him a little note and we will
make sure he gets all the emails in the hospital.Finally, please forward this to anyone you think might know Mark. I
don't know all his friends, so please help me out.I will keep you up to date if anything changes in Mark's condition.
Thanks and stay safe!
Thierry Wernaers
Cabarrus County Democratic Party volunteer
- jimstaro's blog
- 678 reads
The person who wrote that is Me.
Yes, I'm Thierry Wernaers, but shhh don't tell anyone.
I actually already posted this message in an open thread yesterday.
Left on 49
Better later than never.....
And keep it fresh in others minds.
Too much doin to stop in often and catch everything, so hope you don't mind it being up again.
If they were sent to fight, they are too few. If they were sent to die, they are too many!
Tell the world: My America Doesn't Torture!
I dont know Mark
I only know of him, and I have only heard good things. I wish him luck on the road to recovery.
"Keep the Faith"
"Keep the Faith"
update on condition of Mark Ortiz
Dear Friends of Mark,
I visited Mark in the hospital again today and I am very happy to report he has been moved out of the Intensive Care trauma unit to a "regular" room. Every day we see him, he seems to look a little bit better. He talked to us the whole time we were there even though he is doped up on a cocktail of Oxycontin, Morphine and muscle relaxants.
He told us several times how great it was that he was getting so many wishes for a speedy recovery.
The good news about being moved to another room is also that you can now visit him whenever you want during the day. If what the nurse told me is true, you can visit him between 9 am and 8.30 pm. He's in room 11-112 on the 11th floor of Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.
Mark loves getting visitors so please drop by sometime if you can.
Mark is scheduled for some heavy back surgery (fusion) on either Monday or Wednesday, depending on how he progresses.
From what I've been told about patients that had the same kind of surgery, he would be in the hospital for at least another 5 days after the operation. We'll of course keep all of you updated on his condition.
We are also trying to get some major press attention to this accident in an effort to find who ever is responsible for Mark's condition.
You might have seen a little article in the Charlotte Observer today and we know there is a bigger article on the way.
Our local weekly newspaper, the Concord Standard and Times, will publish an article in next weeks edition and The Independent Tribune is also interested in covering the accident.
Finding out about whoever was the driver responsible for this is of course also very important because of the huge medical bills Mark is facing. We are in the process of finding out if mark had any health care coverage. He told us today that he made the first payment on a new health care policy the day before the accident (!), but we're not sure if that means he was covered already.
Regardless of if he had insurance or not, Mark will have big bills to pay, that's why we're planning on doing a benefit to raise some money for him. Mark was apparently aiming to ride 10,000 miles (!) on his bike this year and we know he was only 15 miles away from reaching that goal when he got run over this past Tuesday. Because Mark can't ride those last 15 miles anymore this year we will. There's a group of cyclists in Concord who are willing to do a 15 mile charity ride where each rider will get sponsored per mile he/she rides. We don't have an exact date yet on when we will have this charity ride, but we will of course let you know when we have more precise plans.
In the meantime, thanks for all the wishes, thoughts and prayers and stay safe!
Regards,
Thierry Wernaers
Left on 49
Website for Mark Ortiz
For all updates on the condition of Mark Ortiz and information on fund raising for him, there's now one address: www.getwellmark.org