A Life Rebuilt

Elburn native reaches bodybuilding stage after horrific accident Beacon News

December 13, 2007

By JIM OWCZARSKI Staff writer

The act alone was unremarkable, a grown man walking across a stage. The significance of it was monumental.

Byron Hicks works out at the gym he owns, Jakked Hardcore in Montgomery. Five years removed from a horrible car accident, Hicks won a bodybuilding event.

As Byron Hicks competed Saturday at the Midwest Ironman Figure and Fitness show at the Gateway Theater in Chicago, he showed off a physique over a decade in the making. As he moved, posing, flexing, displaying carefully crafted definition, one element to his structure defined not who he is, but what he is about.

In May of 2002, the 250-pound Hicks found himself wedged into a borrowed Ford Escort while his more appropriately sized Ford F-150 was being worked on. A block away from switching rides, a car made an unexpected U-turn in front of him and the two collided.

At impact, Hicks' right femur was like a window pane falling to the pavement -- but because of his muscular frame the damage remained contained within his leg.

Only after an eight-hour wait in the hospital did a doctor realize his thigh had swollen to a disproportionate size.

The femoral artery was severed in the accident, and Hicks was bleeding out internally. To save his life, a fasciotomy was performed to release the building pressure. An incision from the knee to the hip was made, causing Hicks' leg to burst open like a slice sausage casing.

The bleeding was contained, but the severity of the injury presented a problem. Because the femur is so large and is a part of the hip and knee, its reconstruction was complicated. After a week, it was decided Hicks had to be moved to a different facility. But infection set in, resulting in 13 "cleanup" procedures as doctors shaved dead muscle in an effort to avoid amputation.

The infection eventually cleared, and new hardware was put in his leg to give Hicks a chance to walk again.

It was June, nearly a month after the accident, and it was just a chance.

"It was very traumatic mentally," Hicks said. "It was very hard to deal with for awhile. It was hard to deal with for a long time, actually. That whole summer was spent at home laying in bed looking out the window. Mentally it was very hard.

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