afm199
Well-known member
Well, I had a crash at T14, Thunderhill, on Oct. 15. This was totally my fault. I was tired, and pushing too hard. Carried a bit too much lean angle into T14 and let off the brake a bit early, before max lean. BAM, front end tucked instantly ( I've done the same crash on the same bike in the same place several years ago.)
I hit the track and slid a tiny bit and then someone hit me in the back from behind. Whomp. I kept sliding, and it was as if someone threw a light switch. I was only aware of and feeling what I could see inside my helmet. I didn't get it until I stopped sliding. I lay there a bit, looking at the inside of my helmet, a bit of track, and my left arm.
At that point I realized that it was hot inside the helmet and reached to open my visor. Nope, arm didn't work. Tried the other one. Nope. Tried both my legs. Nope. It was oddly peaceful. I wasn't worried, almost as if I had no worries because I couldn't do anything!
Anyway, within a couple minutes ( all the while talking to one my fellow instructors) feeling started to come back. I could move my arms with difficulty, and ditto my legs. I stood up slowly and got an ambulance ride back to the pits.
My legs were feeling fine, my arms had some huge tingling and zapping and pain, as well as my back and neck. Got checked out in the aid station. He recommended I go get some xrays. Good idea.
The next day I got a complete workup at Kaiser, scans, xrays, etc, turns out that I fractured the anterior process of C5. I think that's what it was, lol.
Both of my arms felt like they had been broken, some really serious pain, and pain going from the neck all the way down the arm to the tip of the thumb and index finger. That's kind of a radial nerve pathway. The interesting part is that the injury was bilateral and symmetrical. Both arms hurt, the pain path was the same, and the feelings were and are the same.
So the next month was a journey of lots of pain, as the nerve function slowly returned. I was using morphine for three weeks. There's still a bit of nerve pain in my index fingers and thumbs, but 90% of the pain has gone away, along with the morphine. i learned a lot about pain management. It's super important to schedule medication and keep the level in your body up. If you wait till you feel pain, it's going to hurt longer and you lose sleep.
The suck part is that I am still recovering neural pathways for my arms, and initially, right after the crash, I could not do any pushups and could curl maybe 5 pounds. ( My baseline was 25 pushups and 35 pound curl.) I'm up to 9-10 pushups now, and 25 pounds is easy to curl, but I still have a way to go. That part is slow. I get stuck at each level of pushup and it takes me 2-3 days to add one fucking pushup. Bicycling again, lost some wind, that's for sure.
So, all in all, it could have been a lot worse.
I'm buying a Helite vest. Don't ride when you're tired.
I hit the track and slid a tiny bit and then someone hit me in the back from behind. Whomp. I kept sliding, and it was as if someone threw a light switch. I was only aware of and feeling what I could see inside my helmet. I didn't get it until I stopped sliding. I lay there a bit, looking at the inside of my helmet, a bit of track, and my left arm.
At that point I realized that it was hot inside the helmet and reached to open my visor. Nope, arm didn't work. Tried the other one. Nope. Tried both my legs. Nope. It was oddly peaceful. I wasn't worried, almost as if I had no worries because I couldn't do anything!
Anyway, within a couple minutes ( all the while talking to one my fellow instructors) feeling started to come back. I could move my arms with difficulty, and ditto my legs. I stood up slowly and got an ambulance ride back to the pits.
My legs were feeling fine, my arms had some huge tingling and zapping and pain, as well as my back and neck. Got checked out in the aid station. He recommended I go get some xrays. Good idea.
The next day I got a complete workup at Kaiser, scans, xrays, etc, turns out that I fractured the anterior process of C5. I think that's what it was, lol.
Both of my arms felt like they had been broken, some really serious pain, and pain going from the neck all the way down the arm to the tip of the thumb and index finger. That's kind of a radial nerve pathway. The interesting part is that the injury was bilateral and symmetrical. Both arms hurt, the pain path was the same, and the feelings were and are the same.
So the next month was a journey of lots of pain, as the nerve function slowly returned. I was using morphine for three weeks. There's still a bit of nerve pain in my index fingers and thumbs, but 90% of the pain has gone away, along with the morphine. i learned a lot about pain management. It's super important to schedule medication and keep the level in your body up. If you wait till you feel pain, it's going to hurt longer and you lose sleep.
The suck part is that I am still recovering neural pathways for my arms, and initially, right after the crash, I could not do any pushups and could curl maybe 5 pounds. ( My baseline was 25 pushups and 35 pound curl.) I'm up to 9-10 pushups now, and 25 pounds is easy to curl, but I still have a way to go. That part is slow. I get stuck at each level of pushup and it takes me 2-3 days to add one fucking pushup. Bicycling again, lost some wind, that's for sure.
So, all in all, it could have been a lot worse.
I'm buying a Helite vest. Don't ride when you're tired.
love