How can I thank the doctors and nurses who saved my life?

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Ouch! My Colnago took it on the chin in 1981 from a head-on collision.

Maybe it’s too late now, but like the TV show “My Name is Earl,” I will try to make amends. As you can see by the photo, my head-on encounter with a car did not go well.

My trip to Stanford Hospital took place on a warm summer day, July 12, 1981, with an ambulance ride from Portola Valley.

It was my good fortune to be hit a hundred yards from the Portola Valley fire station, where I received medical attention within minutes of the accident.

The EMTs stabilized my broken humerus, a compound fracture that tore a hole in my brachial artery. My left kneecap broke like an eggshell when it took out the car’s left-turn signal. Whiplash from crashing into the windshield left me with a sore neck and maybe a fracture in the C6 vertebra. X rays were inconclusive.

I had some minor facial cuts, but no internal injuries.

I wouldn’t be in surgery until around 10 that evening. I was in good hands — in fact, extremely good hands. William Baumgartner and Michael J. Cummins masterfully sewed up the artery. As it turns out, Dr. Baumgartner left Stanford Hospital for Johns Hopkins a year later, going on to become the head of the cardiology department where he specialized in heart and lung transplant surgeries.

It doesn’t end there. The orthopaedic surgeons who repaired my humerus were Donald Bunce and Chris Mochizuki. Dr. Mochizuki may still be practicing in Redwood City.

Dr. Bunce died of a heart attack in 2003. I only learned recently that he was the Stanford University quarterback in 1972, and led his team to victory over Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

My surgeries went well and I left the hospital 11 days later on my own two feet.

How do you thank all the people who saved your life? It’s tough. You realize how vital medical care is and you understand why it’s such a flash point in politics. Good health care is a matter of life and death.

As for today’s health insurance, it’s a reflection of changing times. In 1981 I paid a modest monthly fee for 100 percent coverage with Blue Shield. The hospital bill came to $40,000. I didn’t pay a dime; just $200 for the ambulance ride.

That brings me to the here and now and why I’m stuck in my garage on a trainer going on two months. It all leads back to that fateful day so long ago.

It wasn’t my arm or my knee that came back to haunt me, but my neck. It was so stiff that I couldn’t turn it after the accident. Riding a bike was awkward, but I rode anyway, covering 50 miles to the ocean by October.

The neck got better after some physical therapy by Doris Sukiennicki, but bike rides have always been accompanied by a sore neck. It got to the point that I couldn’t take it anymore.

Physical therapy is helping, but it remains to be seen how much it can undo 35 years of ignoring stiff, scarred muscles. I’m making progress, but that impact point with the car windshield will never let me forget my transgressions.