Written by: Bob Babbitt
Posted: Wednesday, 23 April 2008
It's December 12, 2006, and Andy Bailey is standing in his driveway. Check that. He is washing his car in his driveway. The car is pointed at the garage door with the trunk towards the street. He had originally planned to wash his car on December 11, but since it was cold he decided to wait another day. While soaping up the car, he spots a laundry delivery van two doors up the hill dropping off some dry cleaning. Moments later while standing on the driver's side of the car up towards the back wheel, Bailey notices something strange. The van that was up the street is now a few feet away from him. And the driver? He's outside the van running next to it.
Not good.
The van hit Bailey's car and he was shoved into a railing that broke loose under the weight. His right shoelace was caught in the debris and his foot finally came out of the shoe.
"I had this sensation of flying as I went underneath my neighbor's carport," he recalls.
Bailey's wife Jeri heard the crash and came running out of the house. At first she couldn't find him in the chaos. The van, after hitting the car, came to rest against the retaining wall.
Lifting up his leg, Bailey screamed, "I've lost my foot, I've lost my foot!"
When the paramedics arrived, they couldn't believe how lucky he was. Bailey had fallen between the two houses and landed on the only patch of dirt in the area. If he had landed on the concrete he'd probably be dead, have brain damage or be paralyzed. Instead, he had horrific injuries to his right leg, but he was alive.
When he arrived at the hospital, Bailey was the fifth major trauma being handled at that time. Since his wasn't considered life threatening, he had to wait his turn.
"Because they didn't know if there were any internal injuries, they couldn't give me any pain medication," says Bailey. "I was in agony."
Eventually they determined there were no internal injuries, twisted the ankle into place and gave Bailey some morphine. The world went dark until the next day.
Andy Bailey is 69 years old. He grew up in Newport Beach and played beach volleyball and bodysurfed the infamous Wedge. He started running back in 1964 and ran the Avenue of the Giants Marathon in under four hours. His best marathon was in Montreal when he ran 3:30.
"I never ran fast enough to qualify for Boston," he admits.
In the mid 1980s, Bailey started cycling and swimming after having some running-related issues. The next thing he knew, he was jumping into some of the shorter-distance triathlons.
In 2000, he signed up for the Ironman Triathlon at Camp Pendleton but crashed hard on his bike while cycling in Redlands six weeks before race day. A broken collarbone put him out of the race.
The following year, he entered Ironman Canada. This time, he had to pull from the race because of a left knee problem.
"I ended up having surgery, which I thought would clear it up," he says. "The doctor brought me into his office and told me he had good news and bad news. The good news? The operation went fine. The bad news? The cartilage damage was worse than he expected, and I would never run again. He actually pulled an artificial knee off the wall to show me what would happen if I kept running."
Eventually, though, Bailey realized that if he kept his running to a minimum, he could still race some short triathlons with a 5K run at the end. He routinely won his age division in sprint triathlons around Southern California and actually won his division at the Olympic-distance race at Wildflower, with a 6.2-mile run at the end.
"That was the highlight of my racing career," he says.
Bailey had his entire 2007 season planned when that rampaging laundry van changed everything.
Since he was so fit, the doctors tried to save his leg. The ankle was fused and a 24 centimeter rod was inserted into the tibia. There was a huge hole from his right ankle up his calf to the left side of the calf and back around. Two plastic surgeons worked together to take the latissimus dorsi muscle from his left shoulder and transplant it to his right leg. He was in intensive care for three days and in the hospital for seven weeks. Bailey was on antibiotics to avoid infection, but no such luck. In week two, a staph infection called a "superbug" set in and never went away.
"The ankle just never healed," says Bailey. "They call it a non-union of the fusion. The doctor told me last July that I should consider amputation."
On the 10th anniversary of the Pacific Coast Triathlon last September, Bailey went to the race on crutches because he had done the previous nine. Since the event was a fundraiser for the Challenged Athletes Foundation, single-above-knee amputee Sarah Reinertsen and One Arm Willie Stewart - both Ironman finishers - happened to be racing. The two spent time with Bailey to let him know that there is life after amputation. Bailey's leg at that point was still swollen and infected.
"They both encouraged me to consider amputation," recalls Bailey. "I tried to get on my bike and my ankle hurt so bad. I couldn't put any weight at all on the leg. Seeing all of these amputees running and cycling and swimming..."
His voice trailed off. Little more needed to be said. It was time. He had given his leg 14 months to heal and the clock was ticking. There are oceans to swim, roads to ride and triathlons to return to.
On February 28, Bailey had his right leg amputated below the knee. On the phone on March 25, he sounded like a new man.
"So far I've made more progress in the three weeks since the amputation than in the previous 14 months," he laughs. "There is no infection or ankle pain and the stump is healing very nicely. I can't believe all of the suffering I've gone through, but at least now it's over."
There is some phantom pain from the limb that is no longer there but nothing compared to what he went through every single day for over a year.
Bailey is getting around the house with a pylon that slides over his stump with a foot at the end. The day after our chat, he was going to be fitted for a prosthetic. Life would begin anew.
But the guy is an athlete and all athletes have goals, right?
"For now," he says, "my goal is to walk without crutches and be pain free."
It won't be long until Andy turns 70. We're guessing that he'll be ready and able by then to get back into sprint triathlons and make the transition from dealing with pain to dishing some out again.
Welcome back, Andy!
"Starting Line" by Richard A. Lovett 
