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Greg Watts Injury Update and Fundraiser

Greg Watts took a big spill last week when a double flip went wrong at Woodward West. He broke his back and had a bad experience at the hospital, but is now in stable condition and good spirits. As we all know, the bills add up really quickly. To help Greg out, Chain Link Clothing and several of Greg's sponsors teamed up to create an online auction, the proceeds of which will go directly to Greg. The auction ends February 20th.

More details below:

Greg Watts Injury Update and Fundraiser
Last week our good friend and athlete, Greg Watts, suffered a horrific crash, while wrapping up his section for "Barred For Life 2". The crash happened around 1:30pm at Woodward West, while in rotation for a double back flip. Unfortunately going into the second rotation Greg tried to eject from his bike and fell 8 feet onto his back and neck. Right away, everyone ran to the scene to make sure Greg was okay, but we knew at that moment that something went super wrong. When he finally caught his breath he told us is neck and back were in tremendous amounts of pain. 

We quickly reacted by calling up our friends at Woodward for a backboard and neck brace, as we waited for the Tehachapi fire department and ambulance to show up and assess the situation. When they arrived at the scene, the Tehachapi ambulance paramedic suggested that due to Greg's serious condition, that he be transported to Bakersfield Hospital that was an hour and a half west of our location.

Needless to say, Bakersfield is an experience that no one needs to endure! This was an ordeal all on its own and unfortunately Greg was going to have to deal with it. The paramedics dropped Greg off in the ER in Bakersfield and it just happened to be full of convicts from the local prison who had just happened to have a 100 man riot that very day. This meant that Greg was going to have to wait for 6 hours before any attention or answers would come regarding his current condition. Also, to make matters worse, his friends had to wait out in the waiting-room and couldn't help him out in anyway as they were restricted to wait out front. 

By the time we were able to see Greg he was still in over flow (a.k.a. - out in the middle of the hall with no answers). We would then have to wait for another three and a half hours before finally seeing some X-rays to help understand what he was dealing with. From this point the doctors were very helpful in giving us some insight into Greg's condition. The doctor walked Greg and myself through what had happened and we were able to record our overview of the X-Rays to show Greg. Unfortunately the X-rays showed two fractured vertebrae - the C1 neck and T3 vertebrae in his back.

Here are a few short videos shot on Greg's iPhone. They give you a good perspective of the injury that he sustained. 

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This was obviously very bad news to hear, since we were all hoping for a popped disk or kinked neck. However it was a blessing in disguise to know that he wasn't paralyzed and will make a full recovery. The doctors informed us that Greg will have to wear a two piece neck and back brace for the next 3-4 months. After that he will continue with his rehab on a strong path back to his bike. The full recovery is expected to take up to 5-6 months before Greg will be back to full health and throwing down.

With that being said, we have been working very hard to get behind our good friend in-order to raise money to help him out with his hospital bills and for any other costs that he might endure on his road to recovery. We will be holding an auction on www.chainlinkclothing.com to raise money for Greg. So far we have had an over whelming amount of support from his sponsors and friends within the industry. 

Below is the line up of great companies that are standing by Greg at this difficult time... ALL PROCEEDS RAISED THROUGH THE ONLINE AUCTION AND GREG'S NEW SIGNATURE BADGE TEE WILL BE GOING STRAIGHT TO HIM!

Auction Items Include:

Greg Watts Injury Update and Fundraiser

















From Greg: "Special thanks to Ryan Howard, Tyler McCaul, Bjorn Aunet, and Andrew Taylor for helping me out while I was in the hospital as well as at the scene of the accident. I'd also like to thank everyone who gave me words of encouragement and positive thoughts as well as my sponsors Haro, Rockstar, Giro, Easton, Chainlink Clothing, Fox Shox, Gamut USA, Five Ten, Maxxis, Smith, and Shimano for sticking by me through my time of recovery. I'll be back with a vengeance before you know it!"

Tyler McCaul: "Sometimes watching one of your best buds hit the dirt is worse than actually hitting the dirt yourself, and last Wednesday was one of those moments for me. Watching Greg bail out on a double flip was scary as hell and is something that I wish I could erase from my memory, but I'm grateful that we took the proper precautions to get him in an ambulance and off to the hospital safely. He's a tough mother F'er and there's no doubt in my mind that he'll bounce back from this and continue to make the impossible look possible on his bike in the very near future. Sometimes even the best make mistakes, but it takes a true champ to get back up. Heal up homie, you're a champ!"

Bjorn Aunet: "Seeing one of your best friends go down is never a fun time, so I'm just glad we can all be there for him on his road to recovery. Greg's a strong dude and I'm sure he'll be back stronger than ever in no time!"

Follow up on Greg's recovery status at 
http://www.facebook.com/chainlinkclothing

From Vital and your CLC family..."We wish you a fast and healthy recovery, brother!"



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