Had just come down Rt. 56 from the Blue Ridge Parkway yesterday evening and was in a residential area when i saw two dogs at full steam running towards me and the other person i was riding with. I moved to the opposite side of the road and sped up, when....... i will never know. I remember nothing of the fall and crash. The next memory is of a woman standing over me saying "Ooooo, that's going to need some stitches." Then i was in a car going to the hospital in Lexington, VA. Turns out the driver was the woman's husband and they were the owners of the dog. I was even too out of it to get mad when i heard some one say "but they wouldn't have actually left the yard."
Got to the emergency room at 8pm, according to a sign i saw on the wall while laying there. They released me at 5am this morning.
Scans of face and head show no internal damage. X-rays of both hands show nothing broken. But,
- Right thumb sprained and basically unusable.
- Right hand swollen but usable.
- Road burn on both shoulders, both forearms, top of left hand, both knees.
- Stitches above right eye.
- stitches under chin.
- Black and blue and swollen right eye.
- Lots and lots of other road burn on right side of face. Looks like i got in a very nasty street fight.
The guy who took me to the hospital collected my bike and panniers and said he would hold them for me. The nurse in the emergency room recommended i stay at the Hampton Inn just down the street from the hospital so when the guy with my bike showed up again around midnight, i asked him to just drop everything off there and tell them i was coming over. No reason for him to have to stay around of try and figure out what to do. I think he feels pretty bad about this.
Front tire of bike doesn't look true any more. Chain is off. The back wheel doesn't roll very well either but couldn't see if it was the brakes or the wheel.
The doctor told me to pack up and go home. A camp ground is not a place where my face is going to heal. Plus i need to get stitches out in a week. I'm not stupid enough to argue with him so my TransAm dream is now on hold.
Found a place that will ship all my stuff back to Lockport for me. I don't need to do anything except give him my credit card number. Will call the airlines after this and see about changing my airplane ticket to one flying home from Ronoke, VA. Probably on Saturday, but i haven't decided yet. I already paid for the room and it's nice and quiet here so it would be good to relax for one day before attempting the trip home. They may not let me on the plane since i'm pretty ugly right now.
Don't look at the below picture unless you like gore....
Good news, as i said, is that as bad as i look i'm up and walking around. The bike helmet did it's job and nothing was broken. My face is sore, but that should go away by 2012. And, i had a fun 5 days before it happened. All in all, it could have been a lot worse.
1 comment:
Wow, one day after I ask for a dog story, you come up with a real doozy! Was that yard fenced in? If not, that dog owner should be read the riot act for letting his dog terrorize bikers.
Thank god you were wearing your helmet.
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