The Short Version
Friday was a beautiful day for a ride. I rode into Santa Rosa, stopped downtown for a soda, then started home. I was riding up Old Redwood Highway, wanting to get to my son’s Geometry class (the last of his difficult summer school session) before it ended, so I could surprise him. I started to make a right-hand turn onto Angela Drive, but realized at the last second that I was going too fast. I tried to brake and turn to avoid a decorative rock pillar on the left side of the road, but was unable to, and crashed directly into it, leading with my left forearm: a hard, sickening crash that threw me onto the pavement and left me stunned. A very kind couple took me to Kaiser. These pictures are not for the squeemish; I was probably going 25 mph and stopped all of my momentum with my forearm:
I needed surgery immediately, and ended up with a steel plate and 9 screws in my arm. Yesterday all the pain medicine made me sick; today all the other non-arm bruised and battered parts of my body are aching.
The staff at Kaiser were fantastic, and some very funny things happened during the experience, which I will post later, but all in all it was not at all fun.
Steve,
I’m not sure how it works but I got the link to this on my Facebook thingy. I’m overcome with (i) horror/sympathy – that break looks terrible and must have involved massive pain; (ii) speechless admiration – how COULD you manage to get those pics, esp the one of you being wheeled to surgery, presumably. Boswell, eat your heart out.
And best wishes for a speedy (and minimally painful) recovery.
Jude Collins
July 5, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Ewww. Hope you feel better soon.
Renee
July 6, 2009 at 7:16 am
Steve: So sorry you are injured. rest up and feel better! Lucky you stopped your momentum with your harm, not your head! (Although, maybe your head is harder!).
Kathy Larocque
July 7, 2009 at 12:27 pm
How’s the bike?
Gary Tabbert
July 7, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Poor Steve! But at least you were there in style with that R.E.M. t-shirt! Get well soon.
Jackie Bird
July 8, 2009 at 7:58 am
[...] de malchance.” Moi, je suis “snakebitten” cette semaine. Ca commence par mon accident à velo. Puis hier soir, notre chienne Elsie, la plus mignon chienne du monde (regardez), a été mordue par [...]
Mordu par un Serpent « SSSBlog
July 9, 2009 at 8:23 pm
I suppose you will want to talk about golf strokes now. Marcy said the x-ray looks awful. Perhaps if you would have been wearing your Stones shirt, this could have been avoided. Let me know a good time to call.
Dittmer's friend
August 2, 2009 at 5:04 pm