I've only been once. On a ride in Campbell River on boxing day, I didn't make it up a hill so I pulled to the side to let me wife pass, saddle was high, foot slipped on a rock and I went over a bank, cartwheeled for about 30 feet and landed upside down. I couldn't move and my wife couldn't move me. Luckily my brother was waiting at the truck at the end of the trail. He hiked in and pulled me up the bank. I couldn't bear weight on one leg and my elbow wasn't where is was supposed to be as well so I couldn't put my arm around him to help me walk. He tied my jacket around my knees so one leg could support the other, made a sling for my arm and I shuffled 20 minutes out to the truck. We briefly considered calling search and rescue but didn't want to wreck people's Christmas. We got to the hospital and straight in for x-rays; sprained MCL and a dislocated elbow. They set the elbow and gave me a knee brace, pain killers, and sent me on my way. I fell again getting from the wheelchair to the truck so they took me back in and gave me a hip to ankle brace. Later in physio rehabbing the knee they realized my ACL was torn as well, had surgery a year later.
How many times you visit the hospital after a ride?
Once for me. At the Woodlot, went OTB off a log. Tore my rotator cuff. 6 months off work and a year to ride again.
Posted by: tashi
No kidding, dancing can often lead to children, the most dangerous creatures possible.
Still waiting to hear what song/music is behind your story?
Posted by: taprider
Posted by: tashi
No kidding, dancing can often lead to children, the most dangerous creatures possible.
Still waiting to hear what song/music is behind your story?
It’s all a little fuzzy, just sloppy times on Whistler dance floors. Not real dancing
“It wasn’t me” by Shaggy was probably in there.
but were you caught red-handed?
“Wuzzant me”
Posted by: RAHrider
Posted by: Ride.DMC
Posted by: mammal
Well, I'm super glad it doesn't bother you much these days. I have to say, picturing that mechanism of injury is one of the most grotesque things that have run through my mind. Absolutely brutal to have to process that level of carnage.
Yeah, I have to say reading that post did not give me good feelings. Gruesome. My biking related injuries seem very ho-hum in comparison. My worst biking injury was being hit by a car - or more accurately T-boning a car that turned left in front of me. I came to briefly while in one of those MRI machines. I was still on a spine board and people were climbing in to try and roll me on my side because apparently I had started vomiting. First clear & present memories from that incident are from a day or two later in hospital. I can remember people talking to me, but I could not see for awhile so the memories are not very clear.
If that's what you call "ho hum," i'd hate to see scary! That sounds awful. Hope you recovered all your marbles - your head must have really been rung. What did your helmet look like?
So my helmet was one of those white Styrofoam getups that you could stretch a spandex skin over. Mine was a red & white specialized number which maximized the "Toad" from Mario Brothers look... The left side was reduced from about 1.5" thick to maybe 3/4's of an inch and caked in dried blood. I saved that thing for years and moved it from apartment to apartment with the belief that "it saved me, so I should save it". I ditched it at some point. Wish I had thought to take a photo of it.
The marbles are all there (I think? I am not sure I would know if they weren't), but I did sever (or severely damage) the muscle that runs from my lower jaw to near the knob of my collarbone near the centre of my chest (I think it may be called the Sternocleidomastoid muscle).
To this day if I sleep wrong all the other muscles in my neck over compensate and I am almost immobilized with something akin to whiplash. It usually happens once or twice a year and can take me out for up to a week. The more active and stress free my life is, the less debilitating and quicker my recovery.
The van was a total write off. My head shattered the windshield, my neck caved in the passenger side A beam, and my left shoulder blew in the passenger window, and my body caved in the passenger door. My doctor told me that I was lucky to be alive, and one of the first responders who came to visit me in the hospital told me that the passenger in the van had just rolled up their window. If they hadn't, I would have probably been decapitated.
It feels weird writing about it to be honest. I spent years/decades actively not thinking too much about it. :)
Last edited by: Ride.DMC on April 9, 2021, 9:49 p.m., edited 1 time in total.
Reason: googled and corrected the name of the damaged neck muscle.
This thread is making me cringe and also nauseace.
It's strange how some people are totally grossed out by these sorts of things, some people aren't fussed and others are fascinated.
@Ride.DMC
you were wearing a helmet during that van crash?
I guess you were shuttling
Posted by: taprider
@Ride.DMC
you were wearing a helmet during that van crash?
I guess you were shuttling
No I was riding my bike. The van turned left in front of me and I t-boned it.
WOW, incredible that you are alive
you must be one tough nut such that the van was totaled and not you
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