Downhill, Gore, hospitals and a weirdly good day

Hercule Q
Hercule Q Posts: 2,781
edited August 2009 in MTB general
Went to gawton dowhill trails today and boy was it fun, putting into practise some race techniques (squashing jumps and railing berms) and it was all going good till the last run when I decided it would be a good idea to race my friend (he's on a Oange 224 and i'm on a hardtail).
I nail the 2nd to last switchback and power on squase the next jump and hit the last one at about 25mph and cone down the other side a bit unweighted on some very slippery wet rock and the bike decides to go in the other direction to me and I eat dirt. For a second my world goes GROUND SKY GROUND SKY GROUND SKY GROUND! (seriously kids i'm so glad I was wearing a helmet gloves and knee pads)
I got straight back up and grabbed my bike despite having no chace of beating my friend now I got back on and continued my desent a bit shaken (but not stirred :) ). When I caught up with my buddies they knew i'd gone down plus the tell tail blood all up my arms and I said "cor my knee hurts a bit" and pulled my pads down to reveal this.....
IMG00318.jpg
so we decide I should go back to the car and clean it up and bandage myself up. After cleaning the wound my friend says we should go to A&E (i wanted to fill it with glue, tape it up and carry on riding) as it was VERY deep. so here I am back in exmouth A&E
09082009383.jpg

and here is the cleaned wound
09082009382.jpg

and here it is stuck back together (i refused stitches cos needles make me physically sick)
IMG00320.jpg

Turns out what happened was I hit my knee on my bar end so hard the skin under the top of my pad ripped from the impact (i hate to think what would of happened without pads :shock: ) I've done my wrist again, am missing skin off my fore arms and shoulder and my new fox flux has some nice scratches on it :( and just to top it off i'm not allowed out on my bike for at least a week till my knee and wrist has healed.

The moral of the story is
1. Never think a hardtail can be quicker than a downhill bike
2. Always wear adiquate protection
3. even with a gaping hole in your leg you still have to wait an hour to be mended at the hospital
4. GAWTON IS AWSOME AND I CANT WAIT TO GO BACK AND GO FASTER!!!!!!

pinkbike
Blurring the line between bravery and stupidity since 1986!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    nicely done, looks painful, seems loads of people are getting wounds recently. top effort for remembering the pictures too.

    im gonna have to steal one of your lines as a signature, hope you dont mind. get well soon fella.
  • Hercule Q
    Hercule Q Posts: 2,781
    ha ha cheers sheepsteeth i'm so pissed off cos i was supposed to go cwmcarn and afan this week however i am still smiling from an awesome days riding :D

    pinkbike
    Blurring the line between bravery and stupidity since 1986!
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Good effort! But I still don't understand how you managed to gouge your knee eith your pad on. Seems like they were too low on the kneecap or something.

    also, if it happens again, you might want to spread as much blood from the wound as you can, on your head/face. They priorities head injuries :lol:
  • Hercule Q
    Hercule Q Posts: 2,781
    yeehaamcgee well they was only 661 veggies and i think it was more the impact that did it

    pinkbike
    Blurring the line between bravery and stupidity since 1986!
  • also, if it happens again, you might want to spread as much blood from the wound as you can, on your head/face. They priorities head injuries :lol:

    Maybe so, but when i came off my bike on Saturday night and knocked myself unconscious (serves me right for not wearing a helmet i suppose) it still took well over 2 hours before i was seen by a doctor.
  • yeh iv been sat in hospital for 3 hours waiting to be seen with half my olar bone making a bid for freedom.......

    on a brighter note a days riding aint complete without some blood or human damage :-)
    I recon im the tinyest horse you will ever see
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    i once spent 2 hours in a hospital with 2 broken arms waiting to be dealt with, on a monday morning at about half nine in a hospital in northallerton which didnt seem too busy as there were 4 different people helping a bloke in the next bay with a fishing hook in his finger.

    this was after breaking them in caterick and waiting for about an hour to get seen by a medic at the military medical centre there!

    maybe i should have been less manly and brtish about it and should have looked like i was in the pain i was feling instead of quietly putting up with it.
  • Hercule Q
    Hercule Q Posts: 2,781
    yeah you should make it seem like your in agony and make loads of noise they'll bring you in quicker

    pinkbike
    Blurring the line between bravery and stupidity since 1986!
  • i once spent 2 hours in a hospital with 2 broken arms waiting to be dealt with, on a monday morning at about half nine in a hospital in northallerton which didnt seem too busy as there were 4 different people helping a bloke in the next bay with a fishing hook in his finger.

    this was after breaking them in caterick and waiting for about an hour to get seen by a medic at the military medical centre there!

    maybe i should have been less manly and brtish about it and should have looked like i was in the pain i was feling instead of quietly putting up with it.

    ultra nasty, sounds like a epic fail to me, how did you do that?
    I recon im the tinyest horse you will ever see
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    i fell about 8 or 10 feet off an obstacle course in caterick and landed as if i was diving into a swimming pool, however it was the ground. i broke both forearms, dislocated my shoulder and gave myself a "slight concussion" (if such a thing exists)

    got six weeks off work and had a blast!! was pretty sore though.
  • sounds uber nasty that like, i will no longer moan about waiting to be seen for my escaping colar bone lol
    I recon im the tinyest horse you will ever see
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    strangely enough, the bones i would least like to brak are my collar bones, i cant ven bear them being touched, the thought sends shivers down my spine so fair play to you.
  • wemac
    wemac Posts: 91
    I kept waiting to hear how you ripped your new Gore jacket, but I guess I misinterpreted... :)
    Trek Fuel EX8 09
  • Hercule Q
    Hercule Q Posts: 2,781
    mega lolz, no i dont really talk like that :lol: but seriously what am i gonna do all week?

    pinkbike
    Blurring the line between bravery and stupidity since 1986!
  • wemac wrote:
    I kept waiting to hear how you ripped your new Gore jacket, but I guess I misinterpreted... :)

    love that comment.....
    I recon im the tinyest horse you will ever see
  • Raymondavalon
    Raymondavalon Posts: 5,346
    Hercule Q

    Nice war wound and photos. Good to see an injured man smiling :¬)
    You'll be back on the saddle in no time at all!
    Strange how you gouged yousefl through the pad. I have the 661 Chicken Wing elbow pads, but use the 661 Kyle Strait knnee pads.

    Good summary on protective gear too. Yesterday at Swinley I saw two youngsters on DJ bikes getting some serious air wearing zero protection at all..

    Regarding A&E experiences..

    Last year I attempted a high speed manual on my HT and flipped at an odd angle. I went to Frenchay Hospital A&E with my tib/fib hanging out the bottom of my right leg - after I'd pushed them back in. I was attended to instantly, doped in A&E while they straightened out my handywork (I'd done a crap job of pushing the bones back in..) and operated on within 2 hours. This happened on a Saturday and I was discharded on Monday and continued "as normal" with 11 screws, a plate and 3 months on sticks..
    I was impressed with the NHS's service and am please to say I made a 100% recovery and rode again 91 days after the event

    That day I was not wearing a helmet and my head missed the ground by millimetres.. it could have been worse..