It was hot out and the afternoon sun was beaming down on us as we got off the ferry and began our cycling adventure. With my tent, air mattress, sleeping bag in tow, along with my DSLR on my back, I battled the steep uphill climbed and was relieved when I crested. As a reward, I wanted to take advantage of the downhill slope and get some wind in my hair and live life to its fullest, so down I went. I managed to reach speeds in the 50 km/h range and was loving the ride on my new Specialized Rockhopper. Sadly, that was a short-lived moment of bliss when it all came to a crashing halt when I under-estimated my speed and distance to a bend in the road. I had slowed down to 30 clicks but this was still too fast for my own good and as a result, I skidded on loose gravel along the side of the road, slammed into a road sign, hit a tree, and rolled into the ditch.
FUCK.
I landed with my left arm in a position I’ve never seen before and though I could move my fingers, I couldn’t control my arm. A woman from a car travelling in the opposite direction saw the entire accident and was the first on scene to see if I was okay. Jay and Echo came down minutes later.
Never loosing consciousness but disappointed by my unresponsive left arm, I managed to crawl out of the ditch to higher ground, took off my helmet with my right hand, and rested on my back until the paramedics arrived on scene. The woman in the car was quick to diagnose exactly what I had broken: my humerus bone. Amy and Lucas, the paramedics who clam-shelled me and hoisted me into the ambulance confirmed that I had broken my humerus bone. Apparently, Amy had received a page from dispatch during her tennis game and left straight away to my need so I apologised for my stupidity on such a lovely day and joked with her about how there is nothing humerous about a fractured humerus.
I was whisked away to the island’s only walk-in clinic to see Dr. David Beaver, the island’s only on-call doctor for morphine and a temporary sling. The clinic had no x-ray machine. As I layed there on the bed, Dr. Beaver made calls to see if I can be air-lifted to Victoria General but as it turned out, they were tending to more life-threatening injuries. All I had was a broken arm and I wasn’t in any excrutiating pain. A special ferry service to Victoria General was also looked into but they too were tending to more serious injuries and couldn’t ferry me across. As a last resort, Jay and Echo rented a Toyota Matrix from a shady character (by their description) and I was finally on my way to Vancouver General with special clearance.
We pulled up to the ferry terminal and were given priority service to lane 1 ahead of everyone else. Then on the ferry, a first-aid attendant from BC Ferries came to the window of our car and made sure that I was doing alright. He too had a mountain biking accident as it turned out. Once we reached Tsawwassen, we were the first to leave. Everywhere I went there were nice and helpful people along the way. I felt touched!
It was well into the wee hours of the morning when a lovely resident doctor by the name of Dr. Andrea Simmonds (who bore a very close resemblance in mannerism and voice to my CS friend in Seattle also named Andrea) made a cool fibre-glass hanging cast for me. She was so impressed by her good work that she asked me to pose for her in my new adornment as she took pictures with her iPhone to show her colleagues. I gave her a thumbs up in the pose, my left thumb sticking out of the cast.
Daylight was about to break again by the time the three of us retired back at Jay’s abode where we fell asleep instantly.
This was definitely not the weekend cycle/camping trip we had expected. But then again, we’re capable of making quick adjustments to our plans.
2012-07-25 Update: Scanned in and posted a pic of a LEGO scenario which I thought was most suitable for this blogpost. The resemblance is humorously uncanny. Thanks, James!
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