“All I remember is thinking I must have broken a rib because I had trouble breathing,” McDuffie recalls. “Fortunately, a nurse who happened to be nearby rushed over and asked me some questions, to see if it was safe to remove my helmet. Then I gave her Janet’s number and passed out.”

As it happens, McDuffie didn’t have a broken rib. But major bones throughout his body had been snapped or crushed: both his femurs (thigh bones), his right arm, and his left knee and tibia (lower leg). His pelvis had been cracked in half.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, McDuffie wasn’t sure he was going to make it. He would later realize just how lucky he’d been. Bystanders instantly jumped to his aid, emergency responders showed up within minutes — and experts at North Shore University Hospital were at the ready to rebuild his body.

Jennifer Klein was the first EMT on the scene. She’d been an emergency medical technician for only a short time, but she’d assisted at plenty of accidents during her training, and she was shocked by the extent of McDuffie’s injuries. “It was one of the most severe traumas I’d seen to that point,” she recalls.

Quickly but carefully, the emergency responders got McDuffie onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. When they rolled him into a trauma bay at North Shore, the priority was clear.

“The first thing we had to do was to stop Mr. McDuffie from bleeding to death — that’s the primary cause of death in the first 24 hours after severe pelvic fracture,” says Ariel Goldman, MD, the hospital’s director of orthopedic trauma.
“There are many blood vessels routed through the pelvis, and he had multiple fractures in that area. Bones are filled with blood as well, and if you don’t stabilize them, they’ll keep bleeding.”

So McDuffie’s next stop was the surgical intensive care unit (ICU), where the team gave him fluids and blood — the first in a series of transfusions that ultimately replaced much of the blood in his body. His lungs were traumatized, so they inserted a breathing tube. Then it was on to the operating room, where, in a six-hour surgery, Dr. Goldman and his colleagues repaired both McDuffie’s femurs, using titanium rods for extra support, and put his right hip back together with plates and screws.

Even then, Dr. Goldman knew they couldn’t take care of everything at once. “It was damage-control orthopedics,” he says. “In an emergency like that, you don’t know the patient’s medical history and how much stress their body will be able to withstand. “You deal with the most pressing injuries, stabilize the rest, and let the patient recover a little.”

Still, exactly what “recovery” would mean was unclear. McDuffie’s leg was “shattered all the way down,” as he put it, and neither he nor his care team knew if he’d ever be able to walk, let alone get back behind the wheel of a semi.

He spent nearly three weeks at North Shore, gradually recovering his strength; then he was transferred to Northwell Glen Cove Hospital for inpatient rehab. After nearly a month of grueling exercises, he was discharged for home care, in which a physical therapist and occupational therapist helped him continue the long work of relearning to walk.

It was a difficult time. “Physical therapy is a very lonely process,” Dr. Goldman says. “No one knows how you’re feeling on the inside. You worry — am I doing damage?”

But McDuffie didn’t let the pain or traumatic memories defeat him. Speaking with a Northwell behavioral health therapist helped, and so did his own stubborn determination. It took five months, but McDuffie finally graduated from a walker to a cane.

“The wheelchair wasn’t for me,” McDuffie says. “I didn’t start off in a chair, so I knew I wasn’t going to end up in it.”

Eight months after the accident, McDuffie returned to the scene to reflect on his experience. He stopped at a nearby convenience store and, chatting to the cashier, mentioned the incident. “Yes, that poor guy on the motorcycle, he died in that crash,” the cashier said. “He was so busted up.”

The comment brought back all the intensity of the accident for McDuffie — but also the miracle of his unlikely recovery. Actually, he told the cashier and the other employees, the rider had survived and was talking with them. They were shocked. He was, once again, thankful.

These days, McDuffie is still making progress and hopes to be back behind the wheel of his tractor trailer rig soon. He says the accident and the care he received left him a more reflective and grateful person. “When you go through something as major as this, it changes you,” he says. “I’m not back to normal yet, but I’m getting there."

“If it wasn’t for the care I received, I would have died. The team at North Shore University Hospital not only made sure I could walk again, but they truly saved my life.”

When a facility is designated a Level 1 trauma center, it means that both the American College of Surgeons and the New York State Department of Health have found that it is equipped to handle the most complex and demanding emergencies. One example of that readiness: North Shore University Hospital has a fellowship-trained orthopedic surgeon on call 24 hours a day — something only a few hospitals in the country can provide. Help is always available from other key specialists, such as neurosurgeons, anesthesiologists and radiologists.

Studies show that seriously injured patients who are treated at a Level 1 center have a greater chance of survival and better outcomes compared to those treated at other levels. “These kinds of emergencies are very challenging, and time is of the essence,” says Dr. Goldman. “The training our team has can make a crucial difference.”