Christy Bullock, 39, was riding a new motorcycle her husband, Lee, had bought in October 2021. With Lee out of town, Bullock didn’t want to ride alone, so she called her father to come along. The two rode down Cheaha Mountain in Alabama without issues, with Bullock riding behind her father.

Bullock wanted to go left, but her motorcycle resisted, and Bullock hit a guardrail. Her father saw the motorcycle wobble around the curve until it fell over. He found his daughter hanging on the guardrail, not breathing. 

Paramedics rushed to the scene of the accident. Some of the first responders were Bullock’s coworkers. Bullock had been a paramedic for over a decade before the crash. Bullock described her injury as atlantooccipital dislocation, the official term for internal decapitation.

The injury is fatal in most cases, as the ligaments in the spinal cord are usually severed. Fortunately, in Bullock’s case, her spinal cord was only stretched. Although Bullock survived, she endured numerous other injuries, such as internal bleeding, torn carotid and vertebral arteries, contusions on her lungs and nerve damage in her left arm that left it temporarily paralyzed.

In the ICU of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s hospital, Bullock was kept on a ventilator for some time. Bullock also endured a coma, liver infection and pneumonia. Doctors were unsure if Bullock was going to survive, but now she is alive to tell her story.

Her neurosurgeon, Dr. Jakub Godzik, presented her case across the United States due to its incredible circumstances. Bullock’s sister, who is a nurse, handles organ donations with Legacy of Hope. Her sister was locked out of the system due to the likelihood that Bullock may have been an organ donor had she passed.

Bullock, who found out a year later, said, “It really freaked me out. It’s like reading your own obituary.” 

During her recovery, Bullock said she struggled with her mental health and was unsure if she wanted to keep living. At one point during her hospital stay, staff took Bullock off her ventilator and took her to the hospital helipad to watch the sunset. Though they were not there for long due to the cold weather, Bullock said there was “a lot of ugly crying.”

“And getting me out of that room was so helpful to my mental health. They went above and beyond out of kindness and trying to give me a reason to live again.”

Bullock continues to share her story on her YouTube channel called LittleTraumaMama.

“Instead of thinking about why it happened, I just focus more on being so glad that I am still here and being grateful for all the people that got me through all of that.”

Last month, Gen V star Chance Perdomo died in a motorcycle accident.

1 Comments

  • suzie
    suzie on

    when was her story on the good doctor

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