After riding for 2 hours through rain, the weather was starting to clear and we stooped for breakfast in Johnson City. As we rode that morning, a quote from a Peter Egan Cycleworld column kept recurring "Once you accept the fact that a rain-soaked road is a sort of aparallel universe with its own rules of traction and physics, the rhythm of rain riding can be quite pleasant". I thought back to my return trip from the '98 Feast in the East, where we rode in the rain from Memphis to LIttle Rock.
What I didn't think about was that riding over rain-soaked tar patches was yet another universe, with its own rules of (non)traction.
All I ended up with is a broken wrist.
Typing one handed is a pain...
Riding my motorcycle on a 4 lane highway, at about 70mph, driving across a
slick tar patch in the road (later described as "almost as slick as ice") I lost control
of the bike, ending with a lowside spill, and me sliding along the road.
A couple of cars who witnessed the incident stopped to render assistance.
Someone called 911 and within a few minutes the sheriff had arrived. He
told me that EMS was on it's way. About that time the Texas Highway Patrol
showed up followed shortly by the ambulance. I was up a walking around, in
fact had helped lift up my motorcycle but the EMS crew asked me to lay
down on the stretcher and strapped me to a back board and put a collar
around my neck.
This attitude of caution was to continue and in fact increase at the
emergency room at the hospital in Burnet, Texas. The doctor sent me for
X-rays of my wrist and of my neck. The X-ray technician had difficulty
getting a clean view of my neck. The doctor was afraid that I had injured
my neck and was very close to becoming a quadraplegic. Because they did
not have a catscan or mri, the doctor arranged for me to be transferred to
Austin.
There were several automobile accidents on Saturday in the area and all of
the ground ambulances were in use - at least that's what they told me when
they explained why I would be "careflighted" to Austin.
And so I was again strapped down to a stretcher. Two flight crew members
explained the procedure to fly me to Austin. They were very concerned that
injury might occur so I was strapped down very tightly on the
stretcher, then the stretcher was pushed out to the parking lot where the
helicopter was waiting. I was loaded through the back like some luggage in
an airplane.
The flight to Austin took less than 20 minutes and was actually pretty
smooth considering the low altitude and the weather in the area. When we
landed I was unloaded and taken across the street into the emergency room.
Doctors examined me and their attitude was different then the Burnet
doctors. They questioned me about my injury and about my current
condition - "I feel this, can I move that" etc. Then they removed my
collar and manually examined my neck.
The doctor was fairly certain that I did not have a neck injury. They took
two X-rays, one with my chin on my chest and one with my chin straight up.
As soon as those X-rays were ready they removed the collar completely and
took me off the blackboard. They told me they would put a splint on my
wrist and release me. The wrist injury, while severe, could wait til I
returned to Dallas for repair. I did not know at the time but this was the
start up my real trouble. If I had known then what I know now, I would've
asked them to sedate me and reduce the injury then. As my surgeon has
explained, reducing would've involved pulling my hand away from my elbow
and straightening the bones out. Surgery would have still been necessary
but I would have been less pain and would have had more options for the
surgery when I returned to Dallas.
But since I didn't know what I know now, I got dressed and left. I sat in
the emergency room lobby and decided how to get home.
All through out this adventure my friend David had been there in the
hospital in Burnet and he was on his way to Austin to the hospital. I was
released and waiting for my cab when he walked into the lobby. I had tried
to talk to my wife from the emergency room in Burnet but when I called
home I got the answering machine. I had ended up talking to my oldest
sister and to my mother, and David had spoken to both of my sisters,
but still no one had been able to reach my wife.
I called a cab and had them take me to the airport to catch a Southwest
Airlines flight to Dallas. When I got to the airport and bought a ticket
I had a large trash bag full of my belongings
from which I pulled my tank back to carry with me and the remainder I
asked the airline to box up and send along as baggage. I got to
the gate and checked in and still had not been able to speak to my wife.
Finally as the flight began boarding I called home and caught her.
Looking back it was probably for the best because by the time she heard
about it all of the excitement was over.
The flight to Dallas takes approximately 40 minutes and for most of the
time I sat with my eyes closed trying to rest. I was sitting in the
middle seat on the second row so that when we landed I was among the first
few people off the airplane. As I walked up the exit way I saw my wife
standing in the hall of the airport and then as I came out of the exit way
I saw my son as well and we all walked slowly towards the baggage claim.
We waited for the box of belongings and as we waited they put a hooded
sweat shirt over me, as it was cold that evening in Dallas. As we drove home
I told them more and more details of the adventure.
Monday morning when my wife and I went to our local doctors office to get
a recommendation for an orthopedic surgeon. This was the first of what
were to be many frustrating experiences dealing with the medical
profession. After several attempts of explaining what we wanted, we
FINALLY were given the name and phone number an orthopedic surgeon.
However when I called his office I was told he didn't work on Monday.
Because I wanted some medical opinion I made an appointment to see one of
his partners in the practice. When we arrive in his office he merely told
us he was the wrong guy to see. He explained what he thought his partner
would plan to do to fix my arm and he suggested that the repair could be
done on Wednesday (remember this is Monday and I broke it on Saturday).
I made an appointment to see the correct doctor on Tuesday morning. When
we saw him on Tuesday he reiterated the plan that his partner had given us
and said that he could do the surgery on Friday (remember this is Tuesday
I had broken and on Saturday and now they wanted to fix it on Friday).
This was the most disappointing news of the entire event to date. It not
only meant that my arm would not begin to really heal until Friday, but it
also meant that my wife would have to completely miss her planned activity
for that weekend.
Tuesday evening while she was working, my son and I went out - stopped in
my office for a couple of quick errands, and then went to the local BEST
BUY a store to look into voice recognition software. My opinion of this
software has always been pretty low when I've looked at in the past. Being
a fairly proficient typist with two hands I always judged them unusable.
However now that I only had one hand I decided to give the software
trying. I bought a simple home version and I have used it on one of our
Pentium pc's here in the office to dictate this report .
