late thursday night i had a bit of a meeting of the minds between my head and a truck mirror. gave me a bit of whiplash, split the back of my head open and gave me a subdural hematoma (bleeding of the brain.) 3 staples, one neckbrace, 5 ****ty meals, one insurance card, one pair of glasses, and one bike lock later (i somehow managed to lose the crossbar of my nylock in this debacle), they finally decided that i was ok to go home. i'm basically posting this as EVEN MORE evidence that you should always wrap your head up whenever you're gonna be riding, ESPECIALLY after the bars close. i've got a good helmet, but apparently it doesn't do you any good when it's hanging in your closet. also, choose your routes wisely. if i had been on a side street, i probably wouldn't have this story to tell.

unfortunately, the injury that i got killed off my memory for the night. so of course, i don't remember anything about the accident. there was a witness that saw what happened (thank god,) but she didn't get any kind of description aside from "it was a big black truck." all in all, it sucks. but i'm glad i ended up as safe as i did and nothing worse happened. i'm gonna be off of the bike for a month (doc doesn't want me getting any dizzy spells while riding) and i can't drink for 3 (thinning your blood is a bad thing when your brain is bleeding), but for the most part i'm happy i'm ok.

and now for the really important detail, the bike is ok. apparently they didn't have space to throw it in the ambulance that i rode in, so they actually had the decency to grab another ambulance to take it to the hospital for me. which is awesome, because that saves me a trip to the police department.

WOW man... Im glad your'e ok! Heal up soon, and thanks for giving me another reason to continue to wear my helmet.

Dude, glad to hear you're OK. Hope you heal up fast and feel better soon. I hate wearing helmets, but after spending some time in the ER myself, I was glad I was wearing my helmet at the time.

Jesus. Glad to hear you're alright.

that's the annoying part. i was in this tiny ass ER room for 15 hours before they had an open bed in the neuro ICU that they could send me to. 15 hours in a little bitty room with no tv drives you crazy when you're in pain and have to pee in a bottle.

edit - and the fact that my glasses are taped to my face doesn't help much.

Wow ... congratulations for being among the living. <patting my helmet with love>

glad you made it.

these stories always make me worry.

holy crap. glad you're alive man. that's really scary stuff. so, did the driver know what happened? or did they bail?

Thanks, I was actually thinking about leaving my helmet at home tonight. Changed my mind.

I almost always ride with a helmet. This afternoon I didn't. Sure as $hit, I immediately fell down trying clips & straps for the first time. Landed on my left elbow (icing it now), my back, and cracked the back of my head a good one on the pavement. Rang my bell, I'll tell you.

No more helmetless riding for me.

+1

I've spent a weekend in a hospital due to a crash in a road race. I was chasing down a break, and someone hit my front wheel with his rear wheel and I bit the ground hard. Split my helmet open, gave me a hematoma on my hip and scraped skin from my hands and knees.

But what was worse, was the small blood spot in my brain that showed up on a CAT scan. That alone was why I was hanging out in a hospital, rather than out with my friends drinking my pain away.

And it was that spot alone, that made me realize that if I were in an accident of the same magnitude, which is pretty easy to do if you ride in traffic or at a decent speed, and I hadn't had a helmet on, then I'd probably be dead or relearning how to count to five.

Sorry, but wearing a helmet doesn't make you look like a nerd.

*hugs my atmos*

I dont wear it as much as I should but I wear it alot. I know it looks dorky, but I deffinately feel a lot more confident when I ride with it on.

sniff....

group hug!

Wow, I hope you heal up fast. I love my helmet.

sorry to hear you're hurt, glad it's not worse

man i'm sorry to here that. i hope you have a speedy recovery and all that

I always wear a helmet - it wouldn't have helped the one time that I woke up and needed to get cat scans to find out why there was blood coming out of my ears, but that definatly got me thinking about it.

Glad you're mostly OK. ERs always suck. Unfortunatly, most of the time I go to the doctor, that's where I am...

I wonder what the bill for the second ambulance for the bike is going to be?

On a somewhat related note - I saw this cool snowboarding hat in popular science. It basically works like a helmet, but it's soft most of the time. On impact, it becomes rigid for a few seconds. They're talking about all sorts of uses for it in sports...

i saw that article, too. I'm very interested in that hat/helmet.

After years (and years and years and years) of refusing the helmet, I recently went over the bars at ~20mph courtesy of the Arizona DOT's rather lax policy regarding leftover asphalt from a patch job. They leave little mounds when they're done patching a pothole, and I nailed one in a moment of lax concentration. Landed on my left side, lost a bunch of skin, got a nice bruise on my hip, but didn't hit my head. However, the sight of the ground coming up to give me a big, excruciating kiss while I was flying over my bike sent me to the bike shop, where I slapped down hard cash for a Giro Transfer (and sme extra for them to straighten my fork). It's comfy. I won't ride without it again.

Heal fast, Crush, and get back on that bike soon.

sorry to hear about the accident, CKD. best of luck healing fast and dealing with the fallout.

ckd,

Heal fast, and well.

Thank you for convincing me to wear my helmet more.

Get well and ride safe.

kansas city in the trend. put a brake on that thang. this is not for everyone. i know about 30 messengers and about all of them have had some major injury in the past 2 years. be safe. know this could have happened on a bmx too. kc has no traffic except on 35. careful, autos don't know what bikes are there.

Best of luck. Heal quick.