"[email hidden]" <[email hidden]> wrote:
Another story of overly solicitous medical care for an injured cyclist
in Korea:
Suffice it to say I've been lucky, or that the concept of guardian
angels isn't as absurd as it might seem. Only one or the other could
explain the fact that I've managed to live over 41 mostly hyper-active
years without a broken bone (toes don't count as bones) or requiring a
single stitch.
Well, there was one unfortunate motorcycling incident that produced a
deep, ugly gash on the top of my head that actually needed stitches.
But hearing the doctor's pronouncement that the entire area would have
to be shaved to insert those stitches was enough to cause me to
spontaneously check myself out of the emergency room. That was in the
late 70's, for crying out loud, when sporting large shorn patches on
an otherwise hairy head was not yet in style. I can only hope I never
go bald, or that the gash has healed into a comely scar that can be
passed off as the result of a manly motorcycling accident (never mind
the fact it occurred when I fell out of a pickup truck unloading my
Yamaha).
Fast forward to September 1998. The 400cc Yamaha is history. I gave
up motorcycles before they managed to kill me, and have taken to a
variety of more physical pursuits. Running, rock climbing, and
bicycling for example. Bad knees limit the amount of running I can
do, and living in south Florida pretty much ended my rock climbing
career. But bicycling has been the center of my sporting universe for
many, many years. Most years have included around 10,000 miles on the
road, and many, many hours of off-road cycling (you can't count miles
off-road - there's no correlation at all between miles and hours).
Anyway, I'm riding my favorite Korean trail, for the first time in a
week. Events have conspired lately to limit my riding to maybe a one
to two hour trail ride per week - a sad turn of events brought on by a
nasty bout of reality. Still, I was in the woods, having fun. I was
trying to get in a good, long ride as a tune-up for riding with a
buddy of mine who's coming to town next weekend. Recent torrential
rains have changed the landscape of the trail, exposing lots of rocks
and roots that had previously been protected by a thick layer of dirt
from my knobbies. Worse yet, the unyielding runoff from the rains has
carved some substantial gullies across the trail in several places.
One of these unsightly gashes is only a couple hundred yards into the
ride. Two feet deep, and six feet wide, it's big enough to become a
bona fide "feature" of the trail. When I first came across the
damage, I packed some rocks into the bottom to solidify the area, and
to modify the contour of the gouge into a less abrupt drop-off.
Still, for some reason, something kept me from actually riding through
the rift. I would approach the damaged spot in the trail with every
intention of riding over it, but would stop on the brink, eyeing the
opposite side with suspicion. Yesterday, I did the same. "This is
ridiculous!" I thought. "This is a tiny little drop - I would cross
something like this without thinking, if I came on it in the middle of
a race".
I picked up my bike and headed back up the trail, glad for the
opportunity to catch my breath and cool off a bit (we're in the middle
of a late summer heat wave). I coasted down the slight incline toward
my nemesis, shifting into my granny to prepare to power out of the
bottom of the rut.
My front tire dropped off the edge of the brink, prompting the
unavoidable acceleration that comes with a gravity-assisted plummet
downward of any type. This isn't to say I was going very fast, just
"too fast". My front tire reached the other side of the wash-out,
just as my rear tire rebounded from the two foot drop behind me. At
this point, Sir Isaac Newton ruled against my remaining upright, and I
found myself on a bike with a rear wheel that insisted on being
directly above the front wheel.
Clipping out, I fell to the left to avoid landing on the rocks I had
lovingly placed in the middle of the wash-out. The bike, however was
riding me for a change, and ruined what I'm certain should have been a
relatively safe, if graceless landing. My right leg, flailing to the
side because of the bike between my knees, came down heavily on one of
the rocks with a solid "thunk" that I felt throughout my skeleton.
My first thought was one of relief - "I was RIGHT!" I felt vindicated
about my previous reluctance to ride over the gorge (it had already
started to take on different proportions, from my vantage point at its
bottom). I realized in a flash that my brain had somehow calculated
the physics of the situation, and determined that any attempt to ride
through the chasm would end in disaster, a perfectly reasonable
position overruled only by my determination and will-power (or,
stupidity, depending on how you look at it). My next thought was that
the blood gushing out of the deep, gaping wound on my right shin had
ruined my Nike sock on that foot. DEEP, GAPING WOUND? Wow!
The deep cut looked nasty, all right. It was the kind of wound you
could stick your thumb in until it contacted bone, if you were so
inclined (and if I was unconscious). Blood was spurting from it in a
thick, red flow. About an inch and a quarter (3cm) long, it had
opened up about 1/3" (1/2cm) at the middle. The amount of blood
flowing from it kept me from seeing how deep the hole actually went.
This is probably why we bleed - to keep from seeing the actual depth
of our boo-boos.
I got up, twisted my handlebars around straight (I always leave them
loose enough to rotate in a crash), and started down the trail. I
stopped twice, fighting the sudden intense desire to decorate the
trail with my lunch. By the time I had ridden home, the bleeding had
slowed dramatically, and the cut began to look like the mouth of
someone in a perpetual state of surprise.
A quick shower, and off to the local hospital I went. Carol insisted
on driving (whether from fear of the possibility of accident-induced
shock, or in response to the total lack of judgement I had shown just
a few minutes prior in the woods). The check-in was "interesting"
since our Korean isn't at the converstational level. We're ushred
into an examination room with two doctors in reassuring white lab
coats. The young female doctor looked disapprovingly at the hole in
my shin. "You need stitches", she said after a long pause to consider
the words, "one, two, three, four, five" as she tapped her index
finger along the length of the gash. Soon, I was laying back on a
bed, with a thick vinyl cloth under my leg to capture any wayward
bodily fluids. "Do you want local anesthesia?" she asked.
"Novocaine?" "Oh, yeah!"
There were a couple bee-sting sensations, and she started to clean out
the wound. The doctor shook her head "This is deeper than I thought".
Great... Then she explains in very broken english that she needs to
stich the sub-dermal layer back together, but is having a hard time
describing the process and material. I helpfully offer "cat gut?"
which is greeted with a look of relief from the doc (who I'm sure
thought it was going to be a pain to explain stitches that dissolve
without being removed). I managed to lose track of how many stitches
she actually used to close up the flesh, but by the time she was done,
I had a lot more empathy for anything made of leather. We checked
out, paid a few dollars for the visit, and I was given a large
envelope of various pills, accompanied by clear, concise instructions
on how many to take, and how often (in Korean, so it was mostly wasted
on me).
As soon as I can walk on both legs again, I'm going to head back up
the trail and, by gosh, do some serious trail maintenance. Goodbye,
Grand Canyon. Hello, Interstate overpass!
Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame
