How was your weekend?
It was a good weekend for me, as I rode with friends twice, Friday night and Saturday afternoon.
On Saturday, I had a session with my friend who had just found a nice wall. He also took cool pictures there.
Now, the story will get more and more graphical and brutal from here. If you are faint-hearted, not keen on hearing about blood shedding and injury stories, if you don’t like Marilyn Manson or hate nightmares, do not read on this injury report. It may not be for anybody, but if you are very curious about things in general or what’s happening in my life, or tough enough to go straight to KFC after watching plastinated human specimens, feel free to go on.
On a sunny Saturday afternoon, my friend and I were hitting walls, banks and fences that looked fun. Then, there was this brick ledge in a shape of a low fence, about 30+ cm in width and a little less than 80 cm in height. Nice stuff to hop onto and ride on the top, though a few twisty kinks required precision hopping from one edge to the next.
I cleared it first try, and then we ended up at the starting point again after riding around the block. Tried again, and as is often the case, I had more speed than before. I thought I might still be able to do it, but my makeshift confidence was smashed against the ground when I knew my body was after the first kink.
So I ended up performing a neck grind on the ledge. Fun time guaranteed in the bath.
I also hit my shin against the edge. Here is an evidence of the swelling the next day.
Yeah, swollen. Wish my legs were always this buff with muscles.
And of course, there is some bleeding at the initial scene.
The bandage was given by this kindly police officer at the Koban just across the street. He came out asking if I needed an ambulance. Second question was “So you were riding on the top of that thing, again?” Damn he’s capable.
One possible reason the officer was so nice was the bleeding. As I got up from the crash, I checked bones. Nothing broken, lucky me. I checked further. Sharp cut on the jeans, and blood stain was already visible through the fabric right around the cut. Ah, unlucky.
Okay, just as expected.
Kind of severe. Damage on the knee pad as well.
From left to right: large pond, small pond, both volcanic. This is the kind of situation that boys call “bone showing incident,” although I’m not a big fan of that saying because it’s cheesy, cocky and probably medically incorrect. Anyway, you are seeing something underneath that does not move in accordance with the skin.
Now that the situation is diagnosed, it’s time for treatment. It obviously needs to be and can be stitched, judging from the rather big wound and clear cut. I happened to have a half-full bottle of water, so washed the wound a little bit. Luckily, there wasn’t much dust or dirt in there.
The trouble is that you have to search for the designated emergency hospital for the weekend. You can only get stitched within six hours or so after the incident. The lucky part is that the police officer checked it for me, and the hospital I’ve been going to since last fall was the designated one.
It was a long slow drive across half of the town. To avoid pain, I kept driving without using the left foot often. The thing is, even if you have a stick shift, you don’t necessarily have to use the clutch to change the gear. Possibility of excessive tear? Screw it. I usually drive smooth enough to deserve this when injured. You can also stop using the clutch completely if you stall the engine when stopping the car and start the car using the starter motor, but I’m not that lazy.
I know that your regular hospital is not in regular operation with regular doctors on such an occasion. But at least this time, a young (probably trainee) doctor did a good sewing job taking his time. Seven stitches. It gave me great relief that there was an experienced regular doctor who could supervise, and I knew the nurse and she remembered me as well. I might have scared the doctor by watching the whole procedure, but I was just curious, not meaning to be policing his deeds. Sorry!
The stitches look clean enough. The leg is swollen despite continuous icing, but for a good reason. Besides the severity of the wound, it was cleaned with saline and toothbrush. I guess it’s a standard procedure because I heard from my friend about the brush story before. I’m not grossed out, since it can’t be worse than internal infection and inflamation later on.
The stitches will be taken off in a week. I’m super stoked about not getting injured any worse, and receiving such decent cure. At the end of the day, my shin is a happy camper.