Topping Frank's bike injury thread

On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 9:31:25 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 8:59:22 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 9:58:26 PM UTC-7, Tim McNamara wrote:
It's not a competition and I wasn't even going to talk about this here,
mainly because stories about bike accidents devolve into such
predictable discussion. But what the hell:

On 5/22/17 I had a head on collision with another cyclist on a bike
trail at fairly high speed- I was going downhill and he was climbing
strenously. My bike was thrown up and back at me and the other guy came
flying over his handlebars. I was struck in the throat by something-
possibly my handlebar, possibly the arm of the other guy- and fractured
my cricoid, displaced my left arytenoid (whatever that is), had
hematomas around my vocal chords that nearly closed off my airway,
contusions, cuts, skin tears, etc., all over the place. I probably also
had a concussion although since I was sedated for the first week it was
hard to tell; we are assuming. No neck or spinal injury, no other
broken bones. From the collision I was thrown onto nice soft grass, so
that probably helped. Interestingly I did not actually hit my head at
any point in the accident, yet still likely had a concussion.

snip
Since you say it was on a bike trail I'm going to assume the sight-lines were too short to allow you evasive maneuvering time. Ouch!
In any case, I'm glad you're going to be all right. There are so precious few of us using Usenet these days that we can ill afford to lose any of us.

I wish you a speedy recovery and more gory details as they emerge.

Good luck from Pureheart in Aptos who is sure not putting on the miles this year...gonna be one of those years, I guess.

I would normally have 3,000+ miles this year so far but I'm down to barely 1,700. We normally do an Aptos ride in August or so but the last time we did it the group didn't stay together and the leaders vowed not to do one this year.

I am jealous. After 9 months at the new job I still haven't figured out how to ride. I guess it's bad attitude I just doahn wanna do a short hurried ride at lunchtime and a hurried shower. I'm on call one week out of four and have unexpected after hours/late nite work that prevents a consistent bedtime. And these late nite hours do not excuse one from 8 hours/day minimum - no coming in late the next day just because you got a call and worked midnite to two. We have 9 am meetings and 6PM meetings and 2pm meetings and If I am late for one of them I get hassled about it.

Any riding I get in these days is vicarious, thru you, goddam you

On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 12:33:18 PM UTC-7, Doug Landau wrote:
On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 9:31:25 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 8:59:22 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 9:58:26 PM UTC-7, Tim McNamara wrote:
It's not a competition and I wasn't even going to talk about this here,
mainly because stories about bike accidents devolve into such
predictable discussion. But what the hell:

On 5/22/17 I had a head on collision with another cyclist on a bike
trail at fairly high speed- I was going downhill and he was climbing
strenously. My bike was thrown up and back at me and the other guy came
flying over his handlebars. I was struck in the throat by something-
possibly my handlebar, possibly the arm of the other guy- and fractured
my cricoid, displaced my left arytenoid (whatever that is), had
hematomas around my vocal chords that nearly closed off my airway,
contusions, cuts, skin tears, etc., all over the place. I probably also
had a concussion although since I was sedated for the first week it was
hard to tell; we are assuming. No neck or spinal injury, no other
broken bones. From the collision I was thrown onto nice soft grass, so
that probably helped. Interestingly I did not actually hit my head at
any point in the accident, yet still likely had a concussion.

snip
Since you say it was on a bike trail I'm going to assume the sight-lines were too short to allow you evasive maneuvering time. Ouch!
In any case, I'm glad you're going to be all right. There are so precious few of us using Usenet these days that we can ill afford to lose any of us.

I wish you a speedy recovery and more gory details as they emerge.

Good luck from Pureheart in Aptos who is sure not putting on the miles this year...gonna be one of those years, I guess.

I would normally have 3,000+ miles this year so far but I'm down to barely 1,700. We normally do an Aptos ride in August or so but the last time we did it the group didn't stay together and the leaders vowed not to do one this year.

I am jealous. After 9 months at the new job I still haven't figured out how to ride. I guess it's bad attitude I just doahn wanna do a short hurried ride at lunchtime and a hurried shower. I'm on call one week out of four and have unexpected after hours/late nite work that prevents a consistent bedtime. And these late nite hours do not excuse one from 8 hours/day minimum - no coming in late the next day just because you got a call and worked midnite to two. We have 9 am meetings and 6PM meetings and 2pm meetings and If I am late for one of them I get hassled about it.

Any riding I get in these days is vicarious, thru you, goddam you

And I'm driving thru Aptos twice/day. It's nice there.

On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 12:34:31 PM UTC-7, Doug Landau wrote:
On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 12:33:18 PM UTC-7, Doug Landau wrote:
On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 9:31:25 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 8:59:22 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 9:58:26 PM UTC-7, Tim McNamara wrote:
It's not a competition and I wasn't even going to talk about this here,
mainly because stories about bike accidents devolve into such
predictable discussion. But what the hell:

On 5/22/17 I had a head on collision with another cyclist on a bike
trail at fairly high speed- I was going downhill and he was climbing
strenously. My bike was thrown up and back at me and the other guy came
flying over his handlebars. I was struck in the throat by something-
possibly my handlebar, possibly the arm of the other guy- and fractured
my cricoid, displaced my left arytenoid (whatever that is), had
hematomas around my vocal chords that nearly closed off my airway,
contusions, cuts, skin tears, etc., all over the place. I probably also
had a concussion although since I was sedated for the first week it was
hard to tell; we are assuming. No neck or spinal injury, no other
broken bones. From the collision I was thrown onto nice soft grass, so
that probably helped. Interestingly I did not actually hit my head at
any point in the accident, yet still likely had a concussion.

snip
Since you say it was on a bike trail I'm going to assume the sight-lines were too short to allow you evasive maneuvering time. Ouch!
In any case, I'm glad you're going to be all right. There are so precious few of us using Usenet these days that we can ill afford to lose any of us.

I wish you a speedy recovery and more gory details as they emerge.

Good luck from Pureheart in Aptos who is sure not putting on the miles this year...gonna be one of those years, I guess.

I would normally have 3,000+ miles this year so far but I'm down to barely 1,700. We normally do an Aptos ride in August or so but the last time we did it the group didn't stay together and the leaders vowed not to do one this year.

I am jealous. After 9 months at the new job I still haven't figured out how to ride. I guess it's bad attitude I just doahn wanna do a short hurried ride at lunchtime and a hurried shower. I'm on call one week out of four and have unexpected after hours/late nite work that prevents a consistent bedtime. And these late nite hours do not excuse one from 8 hours/day minimum - no coming in late the next day just because you got a call and worked midnite to two. We have 9 am meetings and 6PM meetings and 2pm meetings and If I am late for one of them I get hassled about it.

Any riding I get in these days is vicarious, thru you, goddam you

And I'm driving thru Aptos twice/day. It's nice there.

So I got a Ninja 250 to commute on. Two weeks ago. An '02, with 3K miles on it. For $2K. I commuted on it for 7 days at 12K RPM and on the 8th day it went pluh-pluh-pluh-duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh. And left me walking. In Aptos village. Now I gotta to do the seals, and am back in my van. #$%^&*!

On Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 9:58:26 PM UTC-7, Tim McNamara wrote:
It's not a competition and I wasn't even going to talk about this here,
mainly because stories about bike accidents devolve into such
predictable discussion. But what the hell:

On 5/22/17 I had a head on collision with another cyclist on a bike
trail at fairly high speed- I was going downhill and he was climbing
strenously. My bike was thrown up and back at me and the other guy came
flying over his handlebars. I was struck in the throat by something-
possibly my handlebar, possibly the arm of the other guy- and fractured
my cricoid, displaced my left arytenoid (whatever that is), had
hematomas around my vocal chords that nearly closed off my airway,
contusions, cuts, skin tears, etc., all over the place. I probably also
had a concussion although since I was sedated for the first week it was
hard to tell; we are assuming. No neck or spinal injury, no other
broken bones. From the collision I was thrown onto nice soft grass, so
that probably helped. Interestingly I did not actually hit my head at
any point in the accident, yet still likely had a concussion.

I was sedated and intubated in the ER on 5/22 and then moved to ICU from
5/22/17-5/26/17 when a tracheostomy was placed so that they could
extubate me and wake me up on 5/27/17. I had a whopping case of
delirium during that time. Two days later I was moved to the stepdown
unit and recovery began to be quite fast- amazingly so, to me. On
5/31/17 the tracheostomy was removed ("decannulated"). I had
spectacularly good care at the hospital. On 6/2/17 I went to the Acute
Rehab Unit for lots of PT/OT/speech therapy and was discharged home on
the following Monday. Two weeks of PT, OT, speech therapy, doctors
appointments, neuropsych testing, etc., on an outpatient basis followed.

My recovery has been excellent, I feel fine and seem to be back to what
passes for "normal" for me. There's a little bit of bruising left to
heal and my voice is missing the top octave and a half that I used to
have. I am qute grateful that the accident broke the way it did and my
injuries weren't much worse (broken hip or something), that I had a
great EMT team, great ER docs and great care at the ICU, stepdown unit
and rehab unit.

Haven't seen all the bills yet. I suspect this ain't gonna be cheap.
One expense is going to be repairing my custom Chris Kvale rando bike...
:-( Top and down tubes, fork and front rim bought the farm.

Sorry to hear of your injuries. Hope you and the other party get well soon.

On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 06:22:59 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

Tim, I am so glad your story has a happy-ish ending. Are your vocal
cords going to recover, or is your career covering Barry Gibb songs
over?

My ENT thinks the vocal chords will heal and improve, although I may not
get my full range back.

I have to ask -- what happened to the other guy and why the collision?
Like I have said here before, other cyclists can be a serious hazard.

The other guy seemed to be fine (he looked to be in his late 20s). He
told my wife he was OK and told the EMTs the same. As for "why," I
think that I was the other cyclist that was dangerous. My recollection
is that I may have cut the inside of a left-hand bend and was still
towards his side of the trail. D'oh!

On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 15:26:25 +0200, Sepp Ruf
wrote:

Valid concerns. So how did your strenuously climbing victim fare?

He claimed to be OK to my wife and the EMTs. He looked to be 30 years
younger than me, so maybe he bounces better. Fit looking MTBer. His
CFRP fork blades snapped off, as I recall.

On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 08:59:18 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Since you say it was on a bike trail I'm going to assume the
sight-lines were too short to allow you evasive maneuvering time.

Well, there would have been enough time to avoid had he been looking up
and had I been attentive. 'Cuz there was nothing blocking the view...
We saw each other a split second before the impact, just enough time to
say "Dude!" I think we may have tried to evade in the same direction.

Ouch! In any case, I'm glad you're going to be all right. There are
so precious few of us using Usenet these days that we can ill afford
to lose any of us.

It is a swindling pool of users, that is for sure.

I wish you a speedy recovery and more gory details as they emerge.

Good luck from Pureheart in Aptos who is sure not putting on the miles
this year...gonna be one of those years, I guess.

Thanks!

On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 12:39:44 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Yow. Hope you heal fast. What was visibility like on that trail? Any
idea of your speed? How's the other guy?

Visibilty was excellent... had either of us been looking in the proper
direction. I think he was looking down as he climbed and I don't
remember where the hell I was looking, but it wasn't where I *should*
have been looking.

I think I was going 20-25 mph. It was an abrupt stop...

On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 12:39:17 -0700 (PDT), Doug Landau
wrote:

Sorry to hear of your injuries. Hope you and the other party get well
soon.

Thanks!

On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 18:04:41 -0500, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 08:59:18 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

There are so precious few of us using Usenet these days that we can
ill afford to lose any of us.

It is a swindling pool of users, that is for sure.
^^^^^^^^^

LOL! A typo but perhaps one with some truth to it.