sbhikes

My co-worker was out on his noon ride but came back an hour late. His friend was there when he arrived and asked him what on earth happened as his helmet was all smashed up and his side was all road-rashed. He didn't know what happened. He lost an hour. He has no memory of what happened before, what happened to get him all smashed up or how he got back to work an hour later.

Really weird. I don't know what there is to discuss about that, but I had to tell somebody. Hit and run? I hope not. Who'd leave somebody unconscious by the side of the road? Or was he unconscious? Maybe he was semi-conscious and sat by the side of the road for an hour? Who knows. He had an MRI and CAT scan and nothing is wrong, thankfully.

genec

Very strange... how about a stroke? Certainly he should be checked.

As far as your statement regarding leaving someone at the side of the road... Well three separate hit and runs in the last 12 months here in San Diego say that apparently just about anyone would do that.

See my last post at https://www.bikeforums.net/advocacy-safety/168508-hit-runs-continue-east-county-san-diego.html
The driver got out, looked and then left... the cyclist is in critical condition.

Fine lot of motorists out there... eh?

xlntRider79

A similar thing happend to my little brother (age 12) last week. We were snowboarding and he fell and hit his head. He got right back up, went down the hill and then went up the wrong lift without me. When I finally found him snowboarding about 20 minutes later, he seemed very lost and disoriented and couldn't form complete sentences or remember anything, but strangely enough his snowboarding abilities were intact. Two hospitals and numerous diagnostic tehniques later, he was declared O.K. and everything came back except the time from the crash to the time he left the hospital.

Apparently with brain injuries like that, the tiny little neuron pathways connecting different parts of the brain that store memories actually get torn apart by the shock of a squishy brain bouncing around inside a hard skull.

Good thing your co-worker was wearing their helmet. I know my brother will be from now on.

jyossarian

From what someone told me, when you experience head trauma, your short term memories get dumped before they become long term memories. Happened to me when I had my accident. I lost about 20-30 min. from right before the accident to when I came to in the arms of a beautiful woman.

twahl

I concur with the short term dump thing, but after apparently going down hard in turn 1, my beautiful woman was pissed and certainly not taking me into her arms.

Bekologist

I've had several traumatic head injuries, and experienced total lack of memory for varied amounts of time after the accidents.

The moments leading into my accidents are still pretty clear, possibly your coworker did have a stroke, get hit from behind, or had a completely sudden mechanical.

A family friend had a stroke going out to use his bike to ride to the mailbox, (didn't have his helmet on) fell and hit his head in the garage - he doesn't have a clear rememberance of his accident.

I hope your coworker recovers fully- did he come back to the office with his bike or without? I once became seperated from my bike after an accident, I'd wandered away and walked home without it.

MediaCreations 

On a ride across Australia a few years back I ended up forming a close relationship with the road surface after one of the guys I was riding with brought a few of us down.

We weren't even half way through a 203 km day. A couple of the riders had to go for treatment but I got back on my bike. Still to this day I don't remember the exact details of the accident.

Some of the team were discussing the event later, including a tourist bus stopping behind us and the driver hopping out to offer help. Even though I got up immediately after falling, I don't remember anything about a bus or anyone asking if we needed help.

I continued the day's ride and the rest of the crossing of Australia. I had the best black eye and scrapes on both arms and both legs as well as a huge scrape across one of my shoulders.

supcom

Closed head injuries often do this. The smashed helmet is the key clue that he suffered a head injury. Losing some recent memory is not unusual. It's sort of like your computer crashing before you saved your file to the hard disk. your coworker is actually very lucky that he only lost an hour and that his short term memory is working. Some people lose more. A lot of people lose their short term memory capability for days, weeks, or forever.

MediaCreations 

I certainly needed a new helmet after my accident but it didn't affect my memory permanently.

And I'll tell you another thing, I certainly needed a new helmet after my accident but it didn't affect my memory permanently.

Taerom

I recently had a bike accident involving some pretty bad head trauma (wasn't wearing a helmet...learned my lesson the hard way). The last thing I remembered before the accident was getting up and eating breakfast a few hours before hand...the first thing I remembered after the accident was waking up in an ambulence on the way to another hospital with a better trauma department...three hours later. I still have no memories of my accident, thankfully. I lost all my memory from about 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

LittleBigMan

When I was attacked on my bike and went over the bars, I was knocked unconscious for a moment. Now that I look back at the incident, I don't remember anything after my attacker made physical contact with me--not going over the bars, not hitting the pavement, only getting up moments later. I felt no pain for quite a while. Strange, but I'm glad I don't remember the details!

sbhikes

His bike was fine. Just a small scratch on one of the hubs. He road it back to work. I think the first thing he remembers is being asked why he was late getting back.

He thinks maybe he hit something in the road--a pothole or something. But he really doesn't know. Wouldn't a stroke have shown up on the MRI?

supcom

If his bike is not damaged, then it's less likely that he was hit by a car and more likely he went down on his own. Pot hole, or some other obstacle causing him to go over the bars is likely. The road rash down one side made me think the bike slid out from under him, but that would usually not cause the helmet to be destroyed and would likely be seen in a scraped up shifter and bars.

scarry

One time I had a moderate fall skiing. Later when I went to use the ATM, I realized that I had forgotten my PIN number.

scarry

Good book about recovery from brain injury.

https://nationalbicyclegreenway.com/Join_NBG/aabook.php


After being pronounced clinically dead, wavering between life and death from a head injury, Martin Krieg regained consciousness but was paralyzed and completely helpless. The book tells what it feels like to be in this state and how a victim of head injury reacts to strange and terrifying surroundings - powerful, seductive forces which pull the patient from the outside world into nothingness.

As he began to recover, the bicycle became Martin's favorite rehabilitation tool,. His tremendous comeback efforts are chronicled, including his much publicized transAmerica ride sponsored by the National Head injury Foundation. Finally, Martin shares his goal for a more fit and healthy America by describing his plans for a national bicycle highway, which are now well underway

slagjumper

That is a strange story. I presume that someone 45+ would be more likely to have had a stroke, But you would think that the scans would have shown a stroke. The hub is a pretty wierd place to have a scratch. Side road-rashe implies an evasive manuver or a loss of traction around a turn

John Wilke

Early CT's don't always show changes in the brain, that's why they usually repeat the CT a couple days later.

jw-RN

jhglaw

Last May I caught a wheel in a rut while mountain biking, went over the bars, landed on my forehead, crushed the front of my helmut, broke the bridge of my prominant nose and knocked myself out for 20 seconds or so. My friend says I was completely aware, could describe the accident and claimed to be fine. We continued riding for 30 minutes and encountered a neighbor at a fence. He asked about my face and I described the accident in detail. We were home in another 10 minutes and having a beer when I became totally out of it. I recovered enough to look and sound OK except that I had a 2 minute memory. The next thing I remember is being at dinner 2 hours later and the waitress telling me that she had shown me her mirrow at least 10 times and each time I asked what happened to my face. After a few more hours I could remember being told that I had gone over the bars and the last conversation with the waitress but I never recovered any direct memory of the accident or anything before the 10th time looking in the waitress's mirrow. I was fuzzy headed for several days. I was back to normal in about a week, except for the nose and the cuts.

I was CT'd the next day in an emergency room shortly after another friend saw my face and realized I was repeating myself. I was too fuzzy headed to think it through the evening of the accident and my first friend did not have the good sense to take me. I was told that the delayed reaction was due to swelling of the brain from the concussion which is typical for a mild concussion with brief loss of consciousness. There are 2 dangers that should bring you to the emergency room promptly w any concussion, especially w any memory loss, mental confusion, or repeating:

1. Serious swelling which can impede blood flow and lead to stroke like permanent damage, and

2. Bleeding in the brain which can impede ... etc

If you are looking out for someone who has been concussed and are not going to take them to the emergency room right away, you should wake them up every hour or two all night long and make sure they are conscious and fairly coherent.

N_C

There is a lot that is not known about the human brain when it comes to things like head injuries. For example 2 people could suffer a head injury, 1 with what seems to be superficial scratches to the skin & that person dies as a result, where the 2nd suffers a serious impact & they fully recover. This tends to leave doctors & head injury specialists scratching their heads & wondering why.

Another thing that is speculated about is the fact that the amnesia a person experiences after a serious head trauma is part of the bodies defense mechanism to help the person recover. If a person remembers to much too soon it could have a more serious affect on the person.

Unfortunatly when the head injury is the result of an illegal action caused by others the amnesia makes it hard for law enforcment to catch the people responsible.

San Rensho 

Similar thing happened to me. I crashed in a motorcycle race going around 60-80 mph. I remember the guy passing me and pushing me off the track, seeing the tire barrier and then going down, but the next thing I remember is seeing a beautiful blue sky and realizing I'm in a golf cart with a corner worker telling me "I think you should see the nice men in the ambulance". I know I was up and about because I had taken off my helmet, gloves and earplugs and pulled my leathers pulled down to my waist. Only I could have done that because the corner workers won't touch you if you are down, they would never take off your helmet.

To this day I have that gap in my memory.

jfmckenna

LOL

---

Happened to a friend of mine too...

Az B

Why don't you email it to me, that way if it happens again you can give me a call and I'll tell you what it is.

Az

atbman

Repeat of my joke elsewhere

Knock knock

Who's there?

Ida

Idawho? (are you in a state?)

Idaknow, I got amnesia