Bruce Dane Hospitalized

David Klaus reports: “On Monday, June 2nd long-time Colorado (and formerly Arizona/California) science fiction convention fan, filk musician, and Worldcon volunteer Bruce Dane, already ill with degenerative disc disease, fell while taking his youngest daughter to a movie and was paralyzed ‘from the nipples down,’ according to his former wife, Michelle.”

David gives more details, and an address for sending cards, below

“He was taken to a Colorado Springs hospital and underwent an emergency laminectomy (which appears to have gone well) on Thursday, June 5th to relieve pressure on his spinal cord. He currently is in Intensive Care — he needed to be intubated and subsequently underwent a tracheotomy to relieve irritation of his mouth and throat from the ventilator tube. Currently he is in and out of consciousness; Michelle says she believes he has been occasionally lucid since the tracheotomy but she is not certain: due to being on the ventilator he cannot speak.

“Michelle, and Bruce’s adult daughters Meera and Kelly, have been at his bedside in shifts, more-or-less around the clock. If you want to send Bruce a card, which will be read and shown to him whenever he’s awake, you can send it to:

Bruce M. Dane
Memorial Hospital/Health Center
1400 East Boulder Street
Room 4634
Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80909-5599

“Or, if you want to avoid going through the hospital mail room (as a former hospital worker, I know that relying on such can be chancy) you can send your card to

Bruce M. Dane
c/o Eris-Meihem Partners
408 Canon Avenue
Manitou Springs, Colorado 80829-1714

“where family will pick it up and bring it to him.

“Bruce has been my good friend for thirty years and has suffered much in the last five — I’m worried this may more than he can physically take. Please give good wishes/pray/spell for him and his immediate and extended families as is appropriate for you.”