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What happened in the crash!?
Monday, 08 March 2010 05:32

collarboneThis update is going to take a long time to write, so I hope you enjoy as I'm doing it with one hand and one finger because of this stupid broken collarbone. These things happen right?  Well, for those of you who wanted to know what happened - here's the goss...

We were having a great ride on Friday for practice at the New Zealand Farm Jam comp.  I'd gone through a tank of fuel already by the afternoon and everyone was enjoying themselves.  There was a bit of wind but not too bad.  We were then doing some filming for Unit in the helicopter when we started doing some trains with everybody joining in.

I was following Dan Frew in to the ramps, roughly 5 metres from him.  He was hitting the smaller 75ft ramp that had a weird transition and slowed his speed down while also doing a huge turndown.  I was hitting the faster 85ft gap and also doing a whip in the opposite direction.  So when he jumped he was angling across in front of me, and my whip made me go his way a little too.  Nothing was really a problem only that his ramp washed off all his speed and he ended up slowing down a lot more than I expected even with a big 5 metre gap between us.  In the end I caught up to him mid-air and we actually hit each other just before we landed on the downramp.

collarboneI angled my front wheel away so it wouldn't take his back wheel out as I knew it was happening but he didn't.  We landed he rode away without an issue and I thought I nearly could have landed it, but the bike skidded along before it highsided me good and smashed me into the rock hard dirt onto my left shoulder.  I slid along on my head for a few metres I'm told as I don't remember that part and it was all for the glory of the Unit guys getting the footage.  I got up feeling not too bad, but then grabbed my shoulder to feel a huge divet where my collarbone should have been. 

Went to the Invercargill hospital where they X-rayed me and said it was broken but I couldn't believe it when they said they wouldn't operate even when I asked them too.  In New Zealand they just don't operate on broken collarbones.  So this sucks as I need to get back on the bike ASAP and I've heard if you have it plated you can get on within 2 or 3 weeks which is hardly any time at all.  So I took my pain killers and came back and now will be going to see my specialist that Brad from GB Orthopaedics is lining up for me on Wednesday when I get back to Australia.  Just as well Brad's there, he knows all the good surgeons!
The other thing I'll be doing as soon as I get home is put my Q-Magnets on and get rid of this swelling and bruising. I've actually been talking alot about them over here and now I need to use them again. 

So I'm definitely bummed, but it won't take too long to get back on once I've had the surgery and straight back into it with some big shows in a few weeks time that I can't wait to ride!

I'll have more information up tomorrow, my head has just been scattered the last couple of days from the pain killers.

 
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