ouch ouch ouch
Today started off much like any normal bike-commute Tuesday. Last week was Distance Week, which makes this Interval Week, so I was on the Della Santa and taking the San Tomas Expressway-to-Central Expressway route from Campbell to work in Palo Alto. I had tuned up my rear wheel over the weekend -- it has a spoke nipple that won't stay tight, which results in an annoying click when it loads and unloads in contact with the ground -- so I was paying special attention to how it was riding.
As I rolled past Castro Street I noticed a new noise emanating from the front end of the bike whenever I hit a bump. I thought "Hm, thats odd, its almost like the headset is loose" and I started testing how big a thump it took when...WHAM! I was over the handlebars and scraping along the bike lane face first. "OWWW" I yelled, then a longer string of unprintables as I crawled to the curb. I noticed my face was bleeding pretty badly so I pressed my jersey sleeve up against my cheek to stanch the flow. A Nissan Pathfinder with bike racks on the roof stopped first, then another bike commuter, then maybe two more cars. Everyone called 911, a nice lady kept talking to me, one of the cars contained a pair of nurses who whipped out a first aid kit and applied gauze.
Before too long a MV policeman, fire dept paramedics, and an ambulance were on the scene. I reassured them I was not hit by a car (Praise Allah!) and that the only other thing besides my face which hurt was my right hand. They asked questions to make sure I was lucid, found my wallet and ID, asked who they should call, cut away my jersey and bottom shirt (my beloved Craft 50SPF shirt!), peeled off my gloves, and got me strapped to a board.
I noticed someone had pulled my bike off to the sidewalk and that the front wheel was separated from the frame. I asked the assembled crowd what was going to happen to the bike. The cop volunteered to take it to the MV station and gave me a receipt to claim it. As of this writing, I have not gotten it back, so I have no idea what kind of shape it's in, nor any clues the frame could provide as to what exactly happened. Perhaps the QR was open and the lack of "lawyer lips" on Roland DS's old-school fork design let it slip right out? Could be, but I didn't bunny-hop the front wheel high enough to clear the dropouts, so I suspect that's not the whole story. Have to wait and see, I guess.
The ambulance ride to Stanford was pretty quick -- I managed to tap out a twitter update and an IM conversation to assure j3n that I was basically OK before I got to the ER. They took chest and hand X-rays and a head CT scan; sure enough my middle and ring metacarpal bones (inside the palm) on my right hand are fractured but other than that it's "just" a really nasty (and highly visible) case of road rash. After a long day of waiting around and asking for more morphine whenever the bones ground together, I ended up with seven stitches in my face and a temporary fiberglass cast on my arm. Jen, who's had more than her share of hospitals already, hung in there like a champ until they finished up and discharged me.
All in all things could have been much much worse for my first real crash in 3 years and over 12,000 miles of bike commuting -- no broken collarbone, no getting hit by a car -- so I'm counting myself fortunate. Big thank-yous to the good citizens who stopped to help, the emergency personnel, the staff at Stanford Medical, friends at work and on twitter who sent well-wishes, Henry for coming over tonight, and most of all to Jen for sticking it out all day at the hospital and taking care of my invalid self.
Obligatory Meat Shot:
Comments
Hopefully you'll heal up well and I can only hope you were wearing a helmet (and if not, you better wear one in the future!)
Yikes! Nasty face-slide.. Mechanical failure is the worst because you don't see it coming like a car or a killer-curb. One second you're up and the next you're kissing road.
I hope your recovery is quick and you'll be back in the saddle again soon!
That's a nasty pace-plant, but I'm glad there were nurses right there and that it looks like you'll make it back to one piece soon enough. I'm glad you didn't suffer worse and I hope the pain of recovery is bearable.
-danny
heal up soon man. being out of commision isn't very much fun.
-parker
That sux man.