It's Sunday, I have the guys over watching some football, BBQ'ing, and drinking a few beers. First game ends and everyone starts getting a little bored. We start YouTubing videos of mountain bikers hopping up mountains. We end up on some dirt bike vids. Well it so happens that one of the guys has a dirt bike. None of the rest of have ever ridden a dirtbike. I don't really count the time I rode one when i was 12. So the friend decides to go pick up his bike. I go grab another 18 of beer. We meet in the field by my house. First newbie goes...no problems. I hop on...no problems...and I guess this is why I get brave. I end up laying the bike over on it's side. Hop up and start going...no biggy I'm fine. Lay it down on the other side...Now I decide to take a beer break. Th owner of the bike whips around a few times, and our last newbie hops on. He immediately flies off the back. He gets up jumps back on and shortly after goes flying over the handlebars. He wants to call it quits and we won't let him. He makes a few more cautious runs and it's my turn again. By now I have learned to shift and am absolutely flying! No slowing down, fishtailing through turns, all that jazz. Well I pull up to the beer take a breather and someone points out a little dirt mound about 2 feet high. I decide I'm going to jump it....well my intentions were to just roll over it to get a feel for it...
So I back up, get myself aligned(mind you I have never jumped any sort of bike in my life)and off i go. I moving pretty slow. The last thing I remember is being at the base of the hill and hearing the engine go full throttle. The next thing i know I am on my back roll through a puddle and get to my feet. The first thought in my head is " i don't care what they say I am not trying this again..." I immediately announce that I am fine...and that everything is all good. I feel some pressure on my right forearm and look down. It is covered in blood and blood in dripping off my fingertips. I reach down expecting to have something sticking out of my arm to pull out. When I look closely the only thing coming out was what looked like my insides. I again announce that I am not alright and should probably get to a doctor. I start walking to my car and get hit with nausea. I can barely stand up straight and get real light headed. We tie a shirt around the bloody hole in my arm and make it to my car. Me and the bike get loaded up and off to the E.R. My arm is killing me. It is so swollen it feels like it's going to pop. Not to mention my stomach felt like it was about to erupt also. A few snapshots of the wound in the E.R. and most people think I have something lodged in there. After quickly explaining to the nurse that took my vitals that i run Ultra Marathons and she doesn't need to rush me to triage because of my low heart rate I am back in the waiting room. (FYI endurance athletes often have a very low resting heart rate...mine rests at 56bpm, lance armstrong's and Dean Karnazes' is like 48bpm, avg person is 72bpm). Now I'm getting impatient...I have blood pouring out of my arm and i just want to see the doc. Finally they call me back. First words out of the doctors mouth is "wow you tore up the muscle pretty good in there." Xrays....nothing...now time for the CTScan. This shows that there are foreign objects lodged deep in my arm. The doc explains that they are too deep for him to do anything about in the ER. For this reason they give me no stitches and recommend I see an orthopedic who can operate on my arm and remove the debris. So finally a cute nurse comes in with a giant needle full of iodine and shoves the tip an inch in the wound and flushes it out with iodine. Then another nurse cleans me up and I'm on my way out. They try to get me for $200 at the desk and we settle on $50. Get my prescription for Anti-Biotics and pain killers. Meet up with my drivers we stand around in the parking lot inspecting the bike. (I'm in scrub pants, a gown, and no socks or shoes) The bikes rear fairing is broke off, brakes no longer work and are leaking brake fluid. All the gas has leaked out from an unknown location, and the exhaust is crumpled in several spots. We are not able to figure out what punctured my arm. Best guess is a bolt up near the front brake handle. We return to my house, I change and grab a flashlight and we return to the crash site. Here we recover the 18pack of beer, the rear fairing, and goggles. We see about 40 feet of track leading up to the hill. Then we inspect the hill i tried to jump. It has a large rock at the very top. They think I hit the rock that jarred me into gunning it and the front end got pushed nose down. We see where the bike makes initial contact with the ground and what appears to my back imprint in the mud. One guy just remembers my feet pointing straight up in the air. The other said me and the bike were flying higher than his head and when I land the helmet goes flying off. Then he remembers me running and stopping a saying I'm O.K. We do a few measurements and it appears that the bike and i fly into the air about 7-8 feet. Front wheel is facing down. I fly over the handlebars land on my back 27feet away from the hill. At this time we think the bike landed on my arm puncturing it before coming to rest about 10 feet from me.
So that is how I got the hole in my arm. I am going to see if the swelling goes down by tomorrow. If not I will setup an appointment with the orthopedic doctor.
I Feel like I will be running again within a few days(hopefully). I don't see myself lifting any weights for quite some time...Doc says I tore up the muscle pretty good.
-Jeremy-
So I went ahead and visited the orthopedic doc due tot he swelling. He wasn't concerned with the object lodged in my arm (looked tiny). He also said the swelling was normal and probably caused by the bleeding inside my arm. He recommended physical therapy due to lack of mobility in my fingers and wrist. He wants to stretch and work the muscle as they heal to help prevent muscle scarring.
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