Miles Away

So I’m not really that big of a safety guy. I run with scissors, handle electronics while wet, don’t wear any sort of padding while skateboarding, rollerblading or biking, ect but most of my life I have worn a helmet while riding my bike. I’ve always been grumpy about wearing my helmet, my mom would yell at me if I didn’t, now my girlfriend yells at me if I don’t. But I will never say another word about wearing my helmet, becuase today it saved my life.

I’ve been riding my bike to work for the last 2 weeks, and I plan on doing so for the summer, its faster then the T, and hey the weather is nice. As some of you may know I live on a hill, so every morning my bike ride starts out with a ride down St.Alphonsus st.

st_alphonsus

Usually this is a good start to my ride.  I apply my brakes so I dont go too fast, and head down the hill.  This morning however, I was running a bit late so I said ‘screw the brakes’ and flew down the hill at full speed.

At the end of the hill there is a major intesection, and all the cars were stopped at a red light.  Coming down I thought I would be able to squeeze past the last stopped car and the cars parked on the street, but at the last minute I realized I couldnt and slammed on my brakes.

**** Things get a bit fuzzy here ****

I slammed my rear brakes and my back tire causes my bike to swerve sideways, I start to recover but my momentum causes my body to be gin to flip over my bike.  I try to swerve my bike to the side again.  The appropt stop causes my to fly sideways (forwards down the hill) and SLAM I hit face first into the rear bumper of the stopped SUV.(According to Jill) I bolted straight up and then fell down.

Jill starts yelling ‘Oh my god Michael are you ok?????’ and as I get up I say ‘yeah I’m fine’, but then Jill see’s the huge bloody gash across my left cheek.

bike_accident

*** This part is really fuzzy ***

The guy get’s out of his SUV, a bystander calls 911, and I am in a daze. Jill says we need to go to the emergency room, I agree and the guy I hit offers to take us.  So we lockup our bikes to a nearby fence.  The guy has his kid get out of the car (he must of been driving him to school at the bottom of the hill, bet that kid had a cool story to tell his friends), Jill and I get in.  He hands me some napkins to apply to my face. The photo above is in the ER after I wiped most of the blood away with the napkins)

On the way to the ER I have Jill call my work to inform them that I’ll be late, they seem very understanding from their response ( from what Jill tells their response was ‘No shit!! I hope he’s ok, if he needs a ride let us know’).

In the ER I tell the nurse behind the desk (and everyone who asked me what happened) that I face planted into the back of a truck.  They take me into a room, ask me some medical questions, insurance provider, if I can remember dates, ect…  Then the take me back into the ER and place me in a room.  Jill told me they told her she couldn’t come with me becuase they had to ask me if I had been abused at my home (aka if she had done this to me).

As I’m waiting things become less fuzzy, and as my body comes out of shock the pain starts creeping up on me.  Obviously my face starts killing, but so does my hand, that’s when I notice the huge gash on my pinky finger.  Both arms are scrped up and so are my knees.

The doctor comes in takes a look, asks me what happened and says it looks like i’ll need some stitches.  First he wants me to go get a CAT scan to make sure I didnt break my cheek bone.  He says it’ll be a few minutes, gives me some gauze pads and lets me wait.

15 minutes later a nurse comes in and gives me some pain killers, and leave me to wait some more. After another 20 minutes another nurse finally comes and takes me to get my CAT scan.  I get the scan, the operater asks me if I’m missing any classes (becuase I’m wearing my WIT sweatshirt) and I’m brought back to my room.

**** things get cool here ****

A camera guy comes into my room.  Apperently ABC is doing a documentary on the hospital and/or the doctor who is treating me, and he wants to know if I wouldnt mind being on camera.  A chance to be on TV? hell yeah, I dont care how hurt I am.  So I sign the waiver, and get interviewed quickly by the camera guy about what happened.

The doctor comes back, with good news, No bones are broken in my face.  Bad news, I’ll have to get a few stitches and a tetanus shot.

Jill is allowed to come back to see me, She had gone and gotten our bikes and brought them home.  So she comes back to watch me get stitched up.

The doctor comes with back with the the sature cart and camera guy.  He begins by telling me this is going to be the worst part.  They need to inject a nerve blocker (aka anateshia) into the area, but… they have to go in through my mouth.  That’s right, he took a needle and from my upper gums injected the nerve blocker into my cheek. That part sucked.

He then did a test with a needle to see how numb the area was, but I could still feel it.  So he injected some more, once again through my mouth.  I laid down, he put some covering over my face and prepped the area.  He was talking alot and explaining everything(I think this was more for the camera than it was for me).  He asked me if I could feel him poking, and I said a little bit.  He told me that the nerve blocker must of been working, or else I would  of  been in extreme pain.

He asked jill if she could move a light over to him and turn it on, and after he did that he says to her ‘Ok now I’ll just need you to make four stitches across here for me, jokingly.  Of course Jill answers ‘Sur eno thing, give me the tools’.  I had to intervene and tell him not to let her, if given the chance she would of attempted it.

He stitched me up, bandaged me up and then took a look at my finger.  It was a nice big cut but it wasent deep so he just cleaned it and bandaged it up.  As the doctor was cleaning up Jill said ‘Thank god he was wearing his helmet’.  And the doctor agreed.  He said from the way it sound how I hit the car.  If I hadent been wearing my helmet it would of been a completly different situation.  We’re talking about more then likely severe brain damage, broken skull, ect..

Just about when I thought I was done a nurse came in to give me a tetanus shot. Damn, I forgot about that.  So she gives me the shot, and as she pulls out the needle blood comes squirting out my arm. Whoops, I guess I had too much.

I come out of the ER only to be greeted by my mother and grandmother.  Jill, in her slightly freaked out state had called just about everyone to tell them what happened.

Now I’m relaxing at home, with a slight headache and a continually swelling face.  But good thing I was wearing my helmet, or it would of been alot worse.

Ok, time to rest.

cleaned_up

**** UPDATE: DAY 2 ***

Bonus pics from day 2.

My swollen face:

swelling

My pinky gash

pinky