PSA: Bike safety

Taken from Voga.org

I am such a klutz.  No, really.  My mom told me yesterday she's nervous about me having kids, because at 27, I am just as accident-prone as I was twenty years ago.  *sigh*

On my way home from work, I took a wipeout on my bicycle.  In EPIC fashion.  I didn't know what happened, but I told the story to my dad (a really veteran biker) and he said I took the curb coming up my driveway at too sharp of an angle -- a rookie mistake.  This makes the wheels of the bike go sideways and fall down.  He says he still does it now, but it always irritates him, because he "should know better".  But he didn't chastise me.  I haven't ridden my bike seriously since I was 21, I guess that's enough of an excuse for him.

Anyway.  The damage.  I went down on my left side and got my left leg caught under the bike.  The first thing to hit the ground was my ribcage, which was about the most disgusting sensation I've had in awhile.  It felt like my ribs were made of Styrofoam peanuts.  I felt a weird crackling sensation.  Then I hit my head on the pavement.  THANK GOD, I was wearing a helmet.  The helmet cracked, which my dad says destroys the integrity of a helmet, so I have to get a new one.  David said later he could actually push the helmet into a concave position after it was over.  SWEET.

I got the wind knocked out of me and I tried to stand up, but I couldn't.  Fortunately a neighbor was sitting on his front porch across the street from us and saw it all happen.  He came over and asked if I needed help.  I managed to gasp out that I wanted my husband, and I lived in "that house", which still confused him.  But somehow he found David, who saw me and freaked.  That was when I realized that the leg that had been caught under the bike was skinned from ankle to knee, and there was a LOT of blood coming out of the knee.  Apparently knee cuts are like head wounds -- they're not very serious, but they bleed like MAD.  There were two rivers of blood coming down my leg.  I wanted to just mop up the blood and go inside but David was all "Hospital.  We're going to the ER now.  You might have broken your ribs."  They didn't feel broken at first but after I stood up they were DEFINITELY hurting, so David managed to get me into the car.  Another neighbor brought us a first aid kit and David used his EMT skills (he was so cute, taking charge of everything) to mop up the blood and bandage the knee.  Then we drove to the ER.  My mom and Christina called at about that moment and found out what happened, so they met us there.

The wait at the ER was predicted at 3 hours (so amazing), but it didn't take that long.  Mainly because I looked like a mess.  They gave me x-rays, and good news: no breaks, just some bad rib contusions and maybe small hairline fractures that the machine couldn't pick up, because I had injured my "floating ribs" (the ones that move when you breathe).  They gave me some Vicodin, and a very nice young man mopped the remaining blood off of my leg, put some Bacitracin on it (which made it feel fantastic), and then bandaged me up.  And I'm good to go.

I feel like complete crap this morning but very lucky -- I got off pretty easy.  I thank God that I was wearing that helmet.  I can't imagine what the damage would have been if I hadn't been wearing it.

Lesson, kids -- no matter how old you are, or how stupid you think it looks, always, always, ALWAYS wear a helmet.