Tony Neyer recently went down a bit weird on a pretty normal and messed up his knee really bad. Like a lot of professional BMX riders, Tony unfortunately doesn’t have insurance to help with his needed surgery. We caught up with Mr. Neyer to find out about his injury, what he’s doing in his down time, and what he’s doing to help raise money to pay for his surgery.

Click here to bid on Tony’s bike on Ebay.

We have the video here, but give us the rundown of what happened when you tore your ACL…
Haha, well it all started with a very delicious cup of coffee. I woke up pretty early one morning and went to my local spot, wrote some emails, and got a hold of some friends and found out my friends Travis and Chip were off work. So we decided to meet up and just film for shits and giggles since none of us had work.

When we met up it was looking like it might ran so we skipped lunch and went straight to riding. We all rode around for a while and I saw some things I wanted to film. The first thing we filmed went fine so I kept going. So I decided to film this line with a crank arm slide. I just started doing them more often so I was pretty pumped on them. I tried two or three times and all of them went well, but I just couldn’t hang on to it. The last time I tried I was going a little too fast and when I jumped to do the crank arm slide I didn’t hit as much of the rail as I wanted to and began to loop out. While I was falling back my left foot planted in the grass right next to the sidewalk, which kept my leg from turning and my knee buckled inward. Something like this shows you just how easily something can go way wrong.

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After you got hurt, did you go to the hospital right away? What did the doctors say?
I actually did go to the hospital and checked in, but one of my friends called me and told me that more than likely the ER wouldn’t be able to do anything for you. So I decided to go home and call around. I called six orthopedic doctors and none of them would take me since I didn’t have insurance. They all told me to go to a University ER since those are state funded (for people with low incomes that are un-insured.) So a day after I hurt my knee I went to the ER. They took some x-rays and then referred me to their orthopedic clinic to see someone that knew more about knees. So after waiting two weeks to see this doctor he does some pulling techniques to test my knee and then decides I need to get an MRI. So I went and got an MRI a few days later and found out that I tore my ACL and Lateral Meniscus. Then they referred to a private surgeon and that’s where I’m at now. I tired to apply for Medicaid and other financial assistance places, but was rejected from all.

How much is it going to cost?
The Surgion told me it will cost $2400 with out Tax for the surgery plus an additional $300 per visit prior to the surgery. That all has to be up front before they will even schedule my surgery. It would have been a lot more but thanks to the University of Cincinnati and a sweet little lady named Kim Stem they will be taking care of my hospital charges (which doesn’t included the surgeons charges—the charges I mentioned above.)

What are you doing to help raise money for the surgery?
Well I’ve posted my bike for sale on Ebay. All the money I make off that will go to towards the cost. Also Chris Mahaffey and I will be putting on a jam/BBQ at my local park with a bunch of contests and prizes. During this jam the money made off the raffle and the BBQ will also be going towards helping the cost. The jam hasn’t been all figured out yet, but hopefully we can make it happen. I’ll let you guys know more information as I get it.

Why didn’t you have insurance to begin with? Is getting health insurance something you would recommend to other riders?
I guess I cant really come up with a good excuse for why I didn’t have insurance. BMX is a wild sport, and you never know what could happen. I should have just had it. But with paying off school and other bills I just couldn’t afford it. Now I am paying for it. Seriously everyone that rides, skates, moto or anything should have it. We’re in a pretty unpredictable industry and you never know when your life could be turned upside down. I got lucky it was just my knee, I couldn’t imagine if it was something worse.

What is your projected timeline for surgery and getting back on your bike?
I see the Doctor again on the 6th of August. I’m hoping he goes ahead and schedules the surgery so that I don’t have to wait ’till I have the money up front to schedule it cause from what I hear there can be a kind of long waiting list to get surgery. That way I’ll have more time to get the money together before the surgery date. I’m really hoping to be getting surgery by late August/early September. Then after that, however long it takes for me to get the approval from the doc to ride.

What are you doing in the down time off your bike?
I’ve been getting back into my college books trying to relearn Illustrator and other computer applications. I’ve also been bartending a couple nights a week a local bar. Besides that, MySpace, COD4. (StylesT3 is my online name, find me on there. I found a few BMXer’s already.) Movie nights with some hot blondes, and walking around in a Speedo trying to weird people out at the local pool, haha.

Anything else you want to say or talk about?
Just a big thanks to anyone that’s been helping me along the way.

Click here to bid on Tony’s bike on Ebay.

Tags: Tony Neyer

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 2:26 pm and is filed under Features, Interview, News, Rider Section, Videos. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.