Brought home to the best — BHG co-founder sought care at UK after Florida crash
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LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 2, 2025) – Bruce Drake doesn’t walk as briskly as he could a couple years ago. But the restaurateur and co-founder of Bluegrass Hospitality Group is thankful to be walking at all after part of his pelvis ripped through his skin during an accident.
One moment, Drake was ruminating on his beloved Kentucky Wildcats’ loss to Clemson in the 2023 Gator Bowl, which he and his three sons had just witnessed. A moment later, he was barely conscious on the side of a Florida highway after their van collided with a stalled semitruck.
His sons rescued Drake from the vehicle before an ambulance rushed him to a Jacksonville hospital. Doctors there stabilized him but weren’t sure how best to proceed with his surgery. There was also concern it might take a few days to schedule, which increased the risk of infection.
UK HealthCare’s Darren Johnson, M.D., is UK Athletics’ team physician and knew Drake well. When he learned of the accident, he got in touch with Drake’s wife, Melinda, and insisted the family do everything possible to get him back to Kentucky.
“The power of family and being home with your own people is something just as powerful as medicine,” Johnson said.
Raymond Wright, M.D., an orthopedic trauma surgeon and globally recognized leader in pelvic repair, was also eager to help Drake. Instead of playing the waiting game in Jacksonville, Drake would get world-class care in Lexington — if he could get there. Within a day, thanks to a family friend who used to work in medical transport, Drake was on a plane bound for UK Albert B. Chandler Hospital.
Fortunately, though Drake’s injury appeared gruesome, it wasn’t the kind of pelvic fracture typically associated with high mortality. Wright, however, remained cautious.
“It’s always a surgical emergency any time a bone comes through the outside of your skin,” Wright said. “It’s pretty unusual to get a pelvis fracture that’s open to the air like his.”
Drake could not have been more impressed with Wright’s bedside manner.
“He was a gift from God,” Drake said. “You’re in a traumatic situation, and you’re scared and you’re worried. All of a sudden, he just takes all that anxiety away from you.”
After his surgery, which lasted several hours and required the placement of six long screws, Drake stayed in the ICU for nine days. He then went to physical therapy to regain mobility.
Moving isn’t as easy as it once was, and Drake still struggles to play golf, his favorite hobby. But he values the care he received in the moment and since his accident — and loves that it’s available to every Kentuckian in need.
“If I was anywhere in Kentucky and I had a traumatic injury,” Drake said, “why would I want to go to any other hospital?”
UK HealthCare is the hospitals and clinics of the University of Kentucky. But it is so much more. It is more than 10,000 dedicated health care professionals committed to providing advanced subspecialty care for the most critically injured and ill patients from the Commonwealth and beyond. It also is the home of the state’s only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, a Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that cares for the tiniest and sickest newborns, the region’s only Level 1 trauma center and Kentucky’s top hospital ranked by U.S. News & World Report.
As an academic research institution, we are continuously pursuing the next generation of cures, treatments, protocols and policies. Our discoveries have the potential to change what’s medically possible within our lifetimes. Our educators and thought leaders are transforming the health care landscape as our six health professions colleges teach the next generation of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care professionals, spreading the highest standards of care. UK HealthCare is the power of advanced medicine committed to creating a healthier Kentucky, now and for generations to come.