Deceptive Speed founder, American hero, all-around good guy survives hospital scare

Erik Buchinger Posted on 11:59 am

I knew our new headline writer would be a great hire.

It’s been a wild month in the Deceptive Speed universe. First off, we added plenty of new writers to the site, and all are doing a fantastic job. If you’re getting your college football news and opinion anywhere else this fall, you’re not living your life to the fullest. Secondly, the self-proclaimed roundest head in all of sports media found himself in his first ever ambulance ride.

As I operated from the friendly confines of the Deceptive Speed Command Center on Sept. 9, I continued my Big Ten football false hope campaign that no doubt had a hand in changing the Big Ten’s decision on the 2020 season. Ask conference commissioner Kevin Warren, and he’ll say, “Who’s Erik Buchinger, and what the hell is Deceptive Speed?”

Moments after shooting out a tweet, my mind went blank, and nothing was entering my brain. As one who isn’t much of a thinker, you’d think this wouldn’t be a big deal but even for me, that was concerning. After that, my heart started racing uncontrollably and I could no longer breathe. I hit the deck, grabbed a phone and called 911. Never done that before. Kind of a cool experience.

Initial thought? Yep, welcome to the 27 club. The age of 27 took the lives of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain - and now Erik Buchinger. All heroes that will be remembered for one reason or another. For them, it’s their undeniable talent. For me, well, I was likely the first ever gray-haired student at Hortonville High School.

As I stayed on the line with the 911 lady, I walked outside barefoot in the rain, still trying to catch my breath. I heard an ambulance siren getting closer and made some sort of witty comment about where that ambulance might be headed, which made the dispatcher laugh. I was very proud of my emergency humor throughout this process.

When the ambulance showed up, I hopped into the vehicle and onto the cot strapped up to some things only smart people would understand, headed for the hospital where I felt even worse. Still struggling to breathe and keep my heart rate down, one of the medical professionals walked in and asked how things are going, and another responded by saying it was better before she arrived.

“Yeah, so could you leave?” were the immediate words that came out of my mouth, which got a good laugh from the audience. Again, I kill it with emergency room humor. If you want to know just how funny I am, please ask.

After that, I was pretty much at my worst during this whole process. Somebody asked for my weight and I had no idea how to even respond. My brain could not even come up with an answer. I was incredibly disappointed by this because I was down 30 pounds for the summer, and the only reason people lose weight is to tell people about it. Please no questions about weight right now though, it’s football season.

The next thing that was said did nothing to help things. To calm me down as I was in full-on freakout mode, I was told, “Go to your happy place.” As a lifelong Christian, what’s the first thing that came to mind?

Heaven.

For a brief moment, I legitimately thought that’s what she meant. Usually people will say don’t go toward the light in this type of situation but in this scenario, I thought she was telling me to go right ahead. In the end, I didn’t go to heaven and never got to a happy place.

Eventually, I received some sort of injection and stopped acting like an idiot and calmed down. She called it a panic attack and said she cannot promise it won’t happen again. Then I asked if she could just lie and promise it won’t happen again.

“Erik, I promise this won’t happen again.”

Despite the promise I forced upon her, that hasn’t exactly been true after sleepless nights and plenty of times I felt it was going to happen again the past month. As a new member of the mental health community, initiation requires me to remind everybody that it’s okay to not be okay.

This hasn’t been all bad though. Since I went in with no shoes or socks on, I was gifted a new pair of socks, which I’m pretty excited about. Looking back, I keep kicking myself by not going in with less clothes on so I could’ve gotten more out of this deal. Something to think about next time I need new boxers.

So this all a ploy to get new free socks? Was it just a publicity stunt to show off the T-shirt I was wearing, which is one of the incredible products ON SALE NOW at the Deceptive Speed Store?

I’m not going to answer that question, but the main takeaway here should be never to consider taking away Big Ten football ever again. This happened before the conference’s reversal, so it’s possible the return of Big Ten football saved my life.

Here’s to 27 more years.