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Back in the Groove
Ken Johnson has
been to a lot of drag races. He has been working with George and Jackie
Bryce for nearly twenty years on all aspects of their highly successful
racing program. Johnson has been a major cog in the success machine at
both Star Racing and G Squared Motor sports.
The reasons for his
success are many, but the major bullets are a highly developed work ethic,
a genuine will to win, and the ability to push himself and his machinery
harder than anyone else on the NHRA tour. Over the last five months, all
of those traits have been strained to the breaking point. Everything Ken
Johnson knew as being “normal” changed dramatically. His thirst for
success and his drive to get back to the track have carried him places
where others would never get. It was June 4th,
2005. Like he had at so many races before, Johnson was riding his ATV
around the pits at U.S. 19 Dragway in Albany, GA when things went horribly
wrong. “I have been riding four wheelers and ATVs my whole life and have
never been injured,” Johnson said. “It was really a freak thing. The
ATV we were riding in got up on its side and was trying to turn over. I
was able to put my leg out to hold it up, which was working until my leg
slipped on the grass and the vehicle turned over.” As the vehicle fell
on its side Johnson’s body remained in the seat. His leg was crushed
under the side of the small truck-like ATV as it came down. “I knew I
was hurt and at first I thought, ‘Oh man, I’m going to be in a cast
for the rest of the season,’ when my buddies turned the thing over all
of us realized that I was hurt bad,” Johnson remembered.
911 was dialed as
Johnson lay on the ground, his femoral artery hemorrhaging blood at an
alarming rate. A tourniquet was applied to the area to try and stem the
flow, but Johnson was beginning to feel the effects of blood loss. “By
the time the ambulance was on the way to the hospital I had lost six units
of blood. I was awake the entire time, so I remember pretty much
everything. My wife Kassi rode with me to the hospital and I can still
remember the EMT yelling that she could not find a pulse on me when we
were riding along,” Johnson said. By the time he
arrived at the hospital, Johnson’s harrowing and painful nightmare was
far from over. “When I got to the hospital, they could not give me any
medication for the pain until they did the X-Rays. You know, it’s kind
of funny. I was wearing my sun glasses the entire time, until I got to the
hospital. They took them off for me when we got there. It’s kind of
strange, the things you remember after going through something like
that,” said Johnson. a
d v e r t i s e m e n t Soon after arriving
at the hospital, Johnson’s biggest worry was the pain. Unfortunately,
his problems would get exponentially larger and his mettle would be tested
yet again in the coming weeks. Doctors made a valiant effort and explored
every avenue available to them that would allow them to reconstruct
Johnson’s leg and thus let him lead a normal life. Despite their best
efforts, however, a very difficult decision loomed for Johnson and his
wife.
“It was a very hard
decision to make the call to amputate. My wife and I did a lot of crying
and we really had to look hard at both sides of the situation. The doctors
said that it could take years to get my leg back to being functional. I
would have been in and out of the hospital and I can’t stand those
places. I just really wanted to get back to work and get my life back
together. We finally decided that the best thing would be to amputate. So
on June 15th, they amputated my left leg, just above the
knee,” Johnson remembered. Many people have had
to face this exact decision in their lives, but those who do not possess
the will to survive that Ken Johnson does often suffer through a dark and
isolated period of arduous recovery. The process of learning how to walk
again has broken the will of many men and women over the course of time,
but Johnson would not fall victim to dark thoughts. “I am lucky because
I have been around people in the industry of prosthetics and people like
[former Pro Stock Motorcycle competitor] Reggie Showers during my career.
Seeing what Reggie accomplished gave me a ton of confidence that I could
do this and get my life back to where I wanted it. Prosthetic Design Inc.
was a major sponsor during our time with Reggie, and I got close to Tracey
Slemker, who works for the company. Tracey helped my wife and I during the
amputation decision and the early recovery process,” Johnson said.
In a great display of
friendship, Slemker invited Johnson and his wife to move up to Ohio so
they could devote all of their time to his recovery and to the process of
becoming mobile once a prosthetic was fitted. Johnson claims that he’s
one of those people who just has to be doing something at all times; he
cannot sit still. In many ways, that’s the best way to be if you’re
someone who needs to learn how to walk again. There are some pitfalls,
though. “I pushed it too
hard in the early recovery. I was walking too much up at PDI and I messed
up the incision on my leg,” Johnson said. “It started to get a little
mangled up and the doctors said that I had to be off it for a while, so I
followed their orders and let it heal up. It was a tough lesson to learn,
but it was the only reason I would slow down at PDI. There were several
moments that I thought, ‘Can I really so this?’ but I just wanted to
get back to work so bad that I pushed myself to succeed.” No matter how upbeat
and how driven someone is, human nature dictates that a certain amount of
doubt and fear will creep into the subconscious of any person who
experiences an ordeal such as this. Johnson and his wife Kassi had to deal
with a few of those moments. “There were a few times when we asked
ourselves why this happened to us. My wife and I both cried, but we
realized that crying does not help anything,” Johnson said. “We held
out heads up and went out there to get better. Knowing George and Jackie
made such a difference. They are such great people and I knew that my
place was going to be there when I got good enough to work. I think that
maybe the Lord chose me to inspire people in this situation, I have met a
lot of amputees at the races since the accident and they all think it is
great that I am out there doing what I do.” As important as the
human spirit is, the technology of prosthetic limbs has come along harder
and faster than a top fuel dragster. Johnson currently has two legs, one
is a “carbureted” leg designed and developed by PDI, and the other is
his “fuel injected” leg that was donated by the Hegwood family of
Ohio.
“The PDI leg was
the leg I learned how to walk again on and it is the one that Tracey’s
company built for me. It is a hydraulic unit that senses when I put
pressure on the toe and it releases so I can walk with normal strides,”
Johnson explained. “When the cylinder releases, the leg swings forward
and I can take a step.” Since that leg is a
mechanical unit, Johnson had to learn to walk “correctly,” meaning
that his posture needed to be correct and he had to really practice the
correct way to stride and how to tailor his walking style to the
mechanical abilities of the leg. Ken’s “fuel injected” leg is an
amazing piece of technology which came along because of the kindness of
others. a
d v e r t i s e m e n t “I went back to PDI
in Ohio to see Stacey and get my C-Leg fitted after Indy. The C-Leg is
manufactured in Austria and I believe it costs about $45,000. It really is
the Rolls Royce of legs and the only reason I have this is through the
help of a family that saw my story. Jesse and Chuck Hegwood of Ohio were
the folks who donated the leg to me. Their son Nick was a motorcycle racer
and an amputee. He was killed in a racing accident and the family wanted
to donate the leg to someone involved in motor sports and motorcycles.”
The Hegwood’s
generous donation now serves as Ken’s primary prosthetic. It is amazing
to think about, but Johnson can actually plug a lap top into this
prosthetic and “tune” it like a racer would tune his EFI. “I can
tune this leg up so it does exactly what I want it to do. It adjusts the
hydraulic pressure over fifty times per second when I am walking to keep
things moving along smoothly. This leg was really made for walking and it
is just awesome. I plug it in every night and get it ready for the next
day,” Johnson said. Johnson travels with
both legs, in the event one of them has a problem he can switch to his
backup. These are not decisions that he ever thought he was going to have
to make, but he has adapted to the situation with aplomb. “This is my way of
life now. I have to make the best of it and go out there and help G
Squared Racing win a championship. I really hope I am able to inspire
people and give people a lot of hope as I continue to do well. I would
never be at this level without my wife and all of the great people who
have helped me along this road. My wife Kassi never left the hospital the
entire time I was in there,” Johnson said.
Aside from being a
bit slower on his feet, Johnson has not met a challenge he couldn’t
defeat yet. “It alters the way I work a little. I need to become a
little more of a supervisor than I was in the past, but you have to slow
down sometime. I may not be able to work as fast as I used to, but I still
know what I know, and that is a lot of the equation. I just need to ask
for help with stuff, where in the past I was doing it all myself,”
Johnson said. “I have done some cool stuff, though. I drove the
18-wheeler half-way to our last race, which is something that I like to do
and it is good that I still can do that. We went out riding Jet Skis last
weekend and I have an old-school, stand-up-style Jet Ski, which I can
still ride better with one leg than Chip Ellis can with two. Honestly, I
have not found anything that I could do before the accident that I can’t
do now.” Ken’s official
return to the track was at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals over Labor Day
weekend. The previous week he put in 70 hours preparing two bikes for the
most prestigious drag race in the world. “I said I was going to ease
back into it, but I guess that didn’t happen. I’m pretty busy for a
one-legged man,” Johnson joked. “We all worked so hard to get those
bikes done and tested and out to Indy. We did alright that weekend, all
things considered. I was just really excited to get back to the track and
get back into the swing of things.”
Johnson was asked to
point out the three biggest factors in his successful return. He said,
“First off I would have to say the support of my wife. She was there
every minute and she never let me get down on myself. Without her, I
don’t know if I could do it on my own. Secondly, I would have to say
Tracey Slemker and Lucy Bush. Tracey is just a miracle worker at PDI and
Lucy let us live at her house for two weeks while I was going through my
fittings at PDI. The third thing would be George and Jackie Bryce and
everyone from the racing world,” Johnson said. “I got so many cards
and letters from racers and fans that it carried me through the dark
times. Everyone was telling me I could do it, and they all wanted me to do
it. That just made my will to succeed so strong. Even the doctors said
that they were not used to someone who was so eager to get back to work. I
was doing things in a couple of weeks that it takes some people six or
seven months to get the hang of.” Ken Johnson’s story
of triumph is one that should provide inspiration to many, not just those
in the racing world. It speaks to the power of the human spirit and the
ability to overcome obstacles in life. Johnson’s very pragmatic approach
to both his injury and his recovery are clear signs that he is a life-long
drag racer. He recognized the issue, sought the most sensible solution,
and threw all of his time, effort, and heart into making it a reality. Ken
Johnson is a true champion in the heart of anyone who has ever conquered
adversity. |
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© Competitionplus 2005
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