Paper Shirt in the hizzy!I had a pretty nasty crash this weekend at the San Ardo road race. Up until the 'incident', the race was going rather well. We had four strong guys and Sassan jumped right from the gun of the 63-mile, flat/rolling course. Once the pace picked up a bit, we went to the front and blocked the hell out of the 70 rider field. Mark, John and I had some amazing teamwork going, letting the failure-bound single rider attacks go while chasing bigger threats. The break of 5 got up to about 2 minutes and lasted over 50 miles before it ran out of gas.
Right before the catch, I was returning to the front for a counter after a successful Pee-Off-The-Bike (yesss!) when disaster struck. A junior rider in our field slammed a pothole on a short downhill section of rather broken road, went over the bars, and caused a few others to hit the pavement. I was about one wheel away from riding through the carnage when the inevitable happened: I had nowhere to go and my bike stopped. I kept going, all at 30+ mph, like so many Lawn Darts prior to their nationwide ban.
Luckily, my face broke the fall. I seem to have landed on a combination of my temple and shoulder, with some sweet additional trauma to one wrist, 7/10 fingers, the back of both hands, one hip, and both knees. When I crawled over to the grass and sat up, blood immediately started SHOOTING out of my upper eye socket, which is a bit disconcerting. Clearly, my helmet saved me from serious injury, if not death. It is now kapooooot. Thanks, helmet!
The junior that caused the crash bore the brunt and looked to have a broken clavicle. Fortunately, his father was basically the only follow vehicle for the Cat 3 race and was the first on the scene. Once we helped the kid into the van, I noticed that everyone was giving me the odd-eye. That's when I realized that I hadn't yet taken a look at myself. I went over to check my reflection in the van's window and HOLY SHIT I LOOK LIKE CARRIE FROM THAT HORROR MOVIE OH MY GOD.
My entire face was covered in blood, dripping off my chin. There was a HUGE hole above my right eye as well as a big flap of something hanging off my chin, that was, in fact, not part of the delicious Lara Bar I had eaten only 10 miles earlier.
I jumped in the hospital-bound minivan while the frantic father tried to get directions by screaming frantically into his 1992 cell phone, swerving all over the 101. We made it there quickly while I held a towel to my face trying to minimize the stain-factor in the trusty Voyager.
The hospital in King City was awesome. They saw me right away and actually started treating me before I had given them any insurance info. In the end, I wound up with approx 22 stitches in my face, half above my eye and the other half putting my chin back together. My shoulder was just deeply bruised, and I was very lucky to avoid a broken collarbone. Lots of other tuff abrasions and cuts, but nothing a little Tegaderm won't fix.
The hand of a fat guy
Unfortunately, I was not given enough Vicodin to make my nurse look like this, but she was a damn nice lady.
The team came to hang out in the ER and even brought a ton of Carl's JR food to munch on. John Foster drove me back to Palo Alto and even bought me a milkshake. These guys are great! Thanks everybody!
The team came to hang out in the ER and even brought a ton of Carl's JR food to munch on. John Foster drove me back to Palo Alto and even bought me a milkshake. These guys are great! Thanks everybody!
