Benoit Escobar Martin, Unbroken Dreams

UNBROKEN DREAMS

Written by Martín Benoit Escobar

“What is that sound? is that a cardiac monitor? where am I?”

I was lying on a pail white room, on a stretcher, connected to many medical machines that I couldn’t comprehend their use. All I saw were two celestial bodies; a beautiful whitedressed woman and a tall broad-shouldered man. All these remissions to heaven just freaked me out, I wanted to live more. At that moment the nurse touched me; “Good morning sir, you’ve been out for a long time,” she said.

Passed out? what’s going on, I couldn’t understand at that point, where was I, why was I there and who were these two people next to me, It was as if I was disconnected from some sections that my brain needed to fully work.

The nurse added; “You will need a shot of epinephrine to recover some lucidness.” She said.

When I felt the injection entering my bloodstream, memories started to flow through my brain, like water on a river. Suddenly I remembered my name; Marco Stewart. I remembered that I was 19 years old, I could even bring back the five world champions of my grandpa James Stewart, This reminded me of the difficultness of filling in someone else’s shoes, all my life I’ve been living up to the expectation of being like my grandparent, a supercross champion.

After all the memories ran back at my brain, I was stabilized. I saw at the corner of my eye my father who has been sitting next to me, the whole time. He asked me how I was feeling, and it was a very difficult question to answer because I still didn’t know what had happened to me, so knowing my feelings were quite complex. I tried to rewind my memory but it was very difficult, red patches appeared in my mind, some parts of the story appeared but it was mixed up. I had a small fragment of me riding my motorcycle, another one of me rolling down the mountain, and finally, I had a memory of myself with a bunch of boys-scouts and an Ambulance.

I tried to compile them on chronological order and this is what I came with. I was at Idaho National Park, Training for the Red Bull Romaniacs —Red Bull Romaniacs is the toughest and most important enduro competition in the world. Enduro is a motorsport in which your goal is to get from point A to point B as fast as you can on a dirt bike. It is different from motocross because is not on an enclosed circuit, it’s on a wide open space, where races can be up to 90 km long.— As I was saying, I was practicing, the day was beautiful, It was a very chilly morning, beautiful sun but also, some beautiful shadow patches. Training started as usual at 6 a.m., I rode my dirt bike all morning, I was practicing jumps and cornering, but after a while, I decided to practice my hill climbs.

There’s was an Empire State of a mountain, a very tricky section full of loosening up volcanic rocks, lots of gravel and a vertical 80 degrees angle ascend. I dropped a gear into 1 st and started the hill climb. The bike was shaking like crazy, I was wide open, full gas heading to the top of the mountain until I hit the technical section and everything went sideways. This section had a lot of logs, each one positioned perfectly in front of the other, so I proceeded to accelerate as fast as I could, and go through them, but the back tire slipped on a log, my dirt bike lost control and I flew away from it. I rolled down the mountain, spinning very fast as if I was a kind of armadillo. I was gaining a lot of speed, I thought I was never going to stop until I felt a big impact on my legs. A branch went through my left leg, I felt a stunning sharp pain, and I started to lose a lot of blood, I felt nauseous, the light started being brighter, I was breathing heavily, and a group of boy scouts found me and called the ambulance. I woke up in the hospital and thought. “What is that sound? is that a cardiac monitor? where am I?”

It was 8:50 PM and the nurse entered the room, she had a face fully covered with disappointment and sadness, she

gave me the bad news that the cut of the branch may have affected the circulation of the blood through the arteries into the rest of my body and that this could, unfortunately, lead me into paralysis or internal bleeding so she explained that the doctors had to amputate my left leg. I felt devastated, my dream slipped between the tip of my fingers, imagine all your life dreaming about competing against your idols and lose the chance to compete the weekend before the race. As expected, my dad was pretty sorrowful about the news, his whole dream was for me to compete professionally and be the greatest enduro rider. I often thought that he wanted me more as a bike winner than a real son.

That night I cried myself to sleep, I couldn’t process the idea that my life was going to take an opposite direction. When I woke up I was moved into the Operation Room, with six doctors, and the nurse who I specifically asked to be there holding my hand since she had been so nice to me, because I was frightened. The surgery lasted for 7 hours, the doctors told me that everything went well on the procedure, I’ve never felt so happy to be alive but so miserable at the same moment. The recovery was like hell, everything was so dark and depressing. I couldn’t get up in the morning, I couldn’t shower myself alone, everything would have been even worse if I didn’t have Helena next to me.

Helena is the nurse, she was the reason why I am who I am today. During my days at the hospital, she always took care of me. I remembered the days she surprised me with a prosthetic leg, she motivated me back into walking, every day we walked from my room to the cafeteria of the hospital, I started to like her, it all started as a nurse and a patient, but then we turned into friends and after that, into a couple. When she was taking me back home I felt extremely happy of going back to my place, but at the same time I was very sad because I was

leaving my other half at the hospital, Helena was one of the most important people in my life, she did everything in her hands to help me, and I will always appreciate that.

After a rough year, I gained some confidence back, every day I went out for a jog. Life was at its fullest, but something was bothering me, I couldn’t feel complete, Motorcycles were a must in my life. Helena had a plan of introducing me back to motorcycling. This was very complex because enduro is a sport in which there is a lot of contacts. The hardest thing to achieve was to gain the balance, I bought a bicycle which had special pedals that connect to the prosthetic legs. At first, maintaining myself on top was very difficult, I was learning all over again. Helena helped me by sustaining the bike and then letting me go as if I was a little kid. This process was completely nerve-wracking, every time I got my speed going, my hands were sweaty, my arms were heavy and it was as if something didn’t let me move, I could feel everything coming back to me; from my father’s feelings, the crash and Helena being scared to death for my health. It was a very rough process, but I finally got over my fears.

After three years of practicing and riding bicycles, I gained the confidence to return to a dirt bike. My father and Helena were very nostalgic, seeing me again on a machine that almost killed my life, wasn’t easy for them but they supported me.

It has been a very complex process but I’m still learning, it feels as if I turned back time and become a little boy again, it still is very difficult to get on the bike again, and more with a prosthetic leg, where I don’t have complete control of the bike. All this experience was very difficult and thoughtful for me, but in the end, I’m still pursuing my dream of competing in the Red Bull Romaniacs, the plan is to compete in the next year.