Shots from The Battery

A very sad day…

Our friend Derek from the Skepticality podcast suffered a possible brain aneurysm just after dinner last night.
Swoopy and his wife rushed him to emergency care, and he is now in an Atlanta hospital in a coma.

The problem apparently developed very quickly, and he was being treated in a matter of minutes, so we hope for the best.
We wish Derek a quick recovery, we know he’ll pull through. Also remember Derek’s wife Susan, and his co-host and roomate, Swoopy.

Here’s an MP3 message from Swoopy which will explain everything

Good Luck Derek! There are tons of people rooting for you!

Swoopy’s email:

In a minute I’m going to do one of those things I really am not sure how I’m
supposed to do, but I’ll get through it. But I’m writing to let you all
know that Derek is in the hospital in a coma.

We (Derek, Derek’s wife Susan and myself) were having dinner tonight and
Derek complained of headache, he said he felt a little strange and we went
outside where he proceeded to be very sick, and got quite pale. We went to
the immediate care that was close by, as it presented like food poisoning.

By the time we had gotten there, five minutes later, I got Derek out of the
truck but he wasn’t really “all there”. They called an ambulance and he was
rushed immediately away.

Very long, incredibly hard to write just now story, made short - Derek had
what is most easily referred to as a brain aneurysm. He’s bleeding heavily
into his brain with something called an MVA - it couldn’t have been
detected, we got him help as soon as could have possibly happened short of
him getting sick at the emergency room - he’s in Intensive Care where he is
expected to be for several weeks, at least.

It’s very early. We really don’t know anything, other than the world
changed for us today.

He was very excited just half an hour before dinner as we had discovered
that Skepticality was one of the 9 podcasts shown during Steve Jobs big
Keynote address introducing iTunes 5 and the nano pod. Big as life, on the
screen we were.

And then this happened.

Derek’s parents are enroute from New Jersey, and Susan and I are encircled
by friends who are being very kind.

Again..it’s too soon to know what this means, about anything. I’ll post a
short podcast in a minute, and something in our forums to let people know.
It certainly isn’t the end of anything, but right now it certainly isn’t
important to me..even though I know if Derek knew I said that, he’d kick my
butt.

I’ll be in touch.

Love all of you..

Swoopy

We had the pleasure of meeting and spending some time with all three of these wonderful people, and we’ll keep them in our thoughts until Derek’s full recovery.