No doubt about it, mountain biking can be a dangerous sport. On my usual Wednesday evening ride, I lost control down a steep, rutted descent and landed squarely on a protruding rock, chest first! Result - three broken ribs.
Even before the accident, it had been one of those rides where you think it might have been better to just stay at home. Five minutes in and my brother-in-law Scott, already punctures and then a further 30mins into the forest, my rear-derailleur cable snapped (3rd time this year at exactly the same spot; I think SRAM have a design fault), so the ride was already over before it began and we were just heading back home (after all our bush repairs on the rear derailleur cable failed).
The route has always been fairly tricky but definately do-able but looking back, the recent heavy rains must have rutted out the track even more than usual, creating sunken holes where there weren't previously. And I managed to find two of those holes. Although I managed to jump out of the first one, the second followed straight after and I just couldn't get my front wheel out in time. Before I could shout out 'crap' the front had dug in and I was flying over the bars, crash landing on a protruding rock. Having no injuries anywhere else indicates, I took the full force of the fall on my chest.
With the slight ping! of bones snapping, I knew straight away I had broken something and with the enormous difficulty in breathing, I realised that ping sound was probably a rib breaking. Fortunately Scott was on hand and shot off to get his car whilst I slowly made it out of forest to the closest spot to where Scott could get the car. That kilometre or so was agony and as my breathing got shorter and shorter I began to feel more and more light-headed. I had to really focus on not passing out.
Scott bundled me in the car (with great care) and straight off to the local ER where I was immediately taken through and put on oxygen and morphine which took a bit of the edge off and helped slow the breathing rate down. X-rays revealed three broken rips with two displaced fractures but fortunately nothing else and after a bit more morphine and some medication to get me through the next day or two, I was on my way.
All in all, a pretty painful experience and I have around 6weeks now of rehabilitation but like so many situations like this, it could have been a lot worse. A big thank you to Scott for the rescue and time spent waiting around the ER.
I am now busy looking into investing in some body armour for when I get back on the bike ;-)
