Pothole caving and ceiling gazing

davis

Much of this is based on 2nd hand accounts, for reasons which will become clear.I usually write better, but don't really have the opportunity here.

Last night my brother and I were doing our normal commute home, I was in front by about 10m, when a hitherto unknown pothole swallowed and stopped my front wheel. I went flying over the bars, and landed in a groaning mess. According to the GPS logs we were doing about 20mph. I was covered in blood, and saying things like "I'm not right, something's wrong"; The first I remember of it is being driven to hospital and walking in complaining of obvious facial injuries and back pain.

Some X-rays and stitching later, it transpired that the newest additions to my injuries list were some manly gashes to my face, a broken nose, and a fractured vertebra. Oh bother.

By amazing good fortune, my spinal cord is intact; the fracture broke forwards, and apparently is pretty stable. I have full sensation and use of my limbs and in that I recognize I've been extremely lucky.
Now, I'm lying on a hospital ward, flat out on a bed, gazing up at the ceiling, bored beyond belief, and forbidden from moving my head and torso. I'm in a fair bit of pain (morphine doesn't cut it) but I'm alive, and a full recovery looks possible, even likely. It might take a while (6 months was mooted) but I'm simply going to do the best I can towards making a successful recovery. Right now that means not moving apart from my arms and sometimes my feet, and just doing as I'm told. Constant progress towards the goal is the plan here, no matter how slow.

Take care out there, peeps, and watch out for potholes.

Facts, or things that I think are true about the accident:
The pothole's very tricky to see from the way we were coming, even with silly-bright Exposure lights for the countryside(tm).
I hit the ground with my face, with such force that it caused a compressional fracture in my spine (T8 if you're bothered)
The pothole is a "Perfect wheel trap" according to my brother, who went and looked at it again this morning - 3 inches deep and 10 inches long IIRC.
It could have been a lot worse.

MaxwellBygraves

Mate just glad for you it wasn't any worse. Wishing you a swift recovery.

EKE_38BPM

WOW!

I'm lost for words.
Get well soon.

getprg

You are sooooooooooooooo selfish - not a word about the other casualty - the bike - how is it - will it live to ride another day. :?

Seriously though - best wishes and speedy recovery mate - keep us posted

jds_1981

Road pothole?

Monkeypump

Having hit a pothole 2 nights ago and got away with 2 flat tyres, a lost water bottle and rear light (both run over by passing cars!) this really hits home how lucky I was.

Wishing you a full and speedy recovery!

And, of course, cursing potholes everywhere.

kelsen

Davis, I meant to reply to this post, but wasn't able to after Hardy26 broke the forum!

That sounds like a horrendous accident, and it was good fortune that your brother was with you at the time, otherwise god knows how long you might have been lying there until someone discovered you.

It's testament to you that you can be so positive after such a horrible accident, and judging by your posts since, you appear to be just getting on with things and not feeling sorry for yourself.

Wishing you a speedy recovery and hopefully you'll be back on the bike soon!

davmaggs

that sounds terrible. If it's a public road please get your brother to measure it and photo it for evidence and then after that please then report it.

I can only report the odd shock and a lost light due to potholes on roads, but since the forum posts yesterday I'm going to start reporting them

gtvlusso

Jeez fella - Wishing you a speedy recovery.

davis

Thanks all. I've tried to avoid commenting on this thread ad nauseum, but I'm now home, so a little progress update:

Basically, it's going well.
The fracture's slipped a bit, and I'm now in a full-torso brace. I'm able to walk around a bit, and recovery looks to be in the order of 6-8 weeks from the accident. I haven't yet checked the bike, but I think it'll probably require an X-ray too (carbon, and I've had enough X-rays myself). I suspect it'll be fine.

As for the pothole, yes, it's been reported (with photo evidence) and I think I'm probably going to try going for compensation, although I've got a deep-rooted dislike of the "automatic compensation reaction" of some people: it was genuinely some people's first comment. I'm not sure I'm completely comfortable with it, but I'm not desperately happy about the personal/bike/equipment damage or the 8 weeks' lost work...

Anyway, cheers all; I'll try not to waffle too much!

davis

*dusts off thread.

Went to hospital for the 6 week X-ray and the bone's knitting together. I'm now allowed to not use the brace; big relief and it's really weird supporting your own body weight for the first time in 6 weeks! I've lost a huge amount of core strength -- amazing how quickly it drops off.
It'll be another 6 weeks before the bones reach proper hardness, and I'm not allowed to do any cycling/bending/twisting/lifting etc until then.

Apparently I'll always have a wedge-shaped vertebra, but the only major long-term effect might be pain on exercise/ cold weather.

Still bloody glad it wasn't worse! And should be cycling come summer....

On a related note, does anyone have any good ways of getting rid of scar tissue? I seem to have some scarring which has attached itself to my brow bone...

londonlivvy

I'm glad you're making a good recovery, even if you've got a bit of a way to go. Perhaps gentle swimming in the meantime?

Re scar tissue, I recently had a minor op and was told that it doesn't matter much which cream you use (though some people swear by Bio Oil and by Vitamin E), it's the massaging in of the cream that matters. The surgeon said the blue packaged Nivea does the job so that's what I've been doing, though can't say it's disappeared yet.

mudcow007

my mrs had ops to remove sweat glands, involving her skin being peeled back an the glands being scrapped away end result mucho less sweating but quite bad scarring.

she was told to use bio oil which she did but it made diddly squat difference too so she just left the scars. luckily for her over the past 2 years since the op the scars are still obvious but are much less prominant

when i was 15 i smashed head first through a glass window (long story short) when i had the stiches removed i was diagnosed with having "lumpy scars" meaning any substantial laceration/ cut i get, scar pretty badly but luckily mine have also faded pretty good too

davis

londonlivvy wrote:

Re scar tissue, I recently had a minor op and was told that it doesn't matter much which cream you use (though some people swear by Bio Oil and by Vitamin E), it's the massaging in of the cream that matters. The surgeon said the blue packaged Nivea does the job so that's what I've been doing, though can't say it's disappeared yet.

*Googles, *buys. Thanks; that might be the first "skin care" product I've ever bought (besides soap etc)

davis

Verily, yay.

davis

Minor update (sorry if I'm spamming the thread, but this is as much for the next person this happens to as anything else): Got a letter from RJW (instructed via CTC shortly after the crash) that legal proceedings against the council are very unlikely to come out in my favour, so they're not going to proceed.

Ho hum. Report those potholes, folks.

davis

Probably the final update:

Recovery's going pretty well really. I'm still getting some fairly constant low-level pains from breathing and moving, and I'm obviously less flexible than I used to be, but I'm back to commuting by bike pretty much every day (that's a little better than the predicted "6 months before you'll walk again" after the crash!).
One thing that helped enormously with breathing pains was visceral manipulation and myofascial release: basically being poked in the guts to allow things to start moving again.

I still get occasional numbness/pins and needles in my left hand and left foot, but it's not a massive problem.

Just need to get properly fit again now...

jimmypippa

davis wrote:

Minor update (sorry if I'm spamming the thread, but this is as much for the next person this happens to as anything else): Got a letter from RJW (instructed via CTC shortly after the crash) that legal proceedings against the council are very unlikely to come out in my favour, so they're not going to proceed.

Ho hum. Report those potholes, folks.

What was the reason for the predicted lack of chance?

davis

jimmypippa wrote:

What was the reason for the predicted lack of chance?

Ah, fair enough, didn't explain that.
The road was inspected on 5th Jan, and I crashed on the 16th Feb. According to an engineer's analysis, the pothole had likely developed after the inspection. As it was on a minor road, and no-one had reported the pothole, then the council would have probably had success with the "we didn't know about the pothole, so how could we fix it?" defence. To be fair to them, it's a reasonable point; if the pothole had developed the day before (for example) then one couldn't reasonably expect them to have fixed it..

jimmypippa

Thanks for the reply - I missed this thread the previous times, but I'm glad that you are on the mend.

First.Aspect

I dont suppose that the pothole was on the edge of a road repair, was it?

Scary story. But a relatively good ending.

davis

First Aspect wrote:

I dont suppose that the pothole was on the edge of a road repair, was it?

Nope, 'fraid not: it was just a wheel-sized hole in the road. The road's in a fairly poor state of repair, and I've since reported other sizeable holes which have yet to be fixed.

Scary story. But a relatively good ending.

Yeah, I think I was unlucky to get such an injury, but I'm bloody lucky to have made the recovery that I have.