Ever heard of road rash?

I remember wondering when I was a little kid what it would be like to ride in an ambulance – now I know.

This past Saturday I rode in the Mesquite Rotary Bike Rally – which was a 57-mile route through Mesquite, Combine and Seagoville. 40 miles into the ride I was averaging close to 20 mph (a new record for me) and was looking like I would finish strong . . . until I rode over a grease spot in Seagoville!

Riding over a grease spot on a warm June morning is like running on pavement and then suddenly hitting sheer ice - and I hit it going 20 mph! One second my rear wheel is fishtailing and the next I’m on the pavement. Although I don’t remember anything after I hit the pavement, I was told that I slid 20 feet before stopping.

When I came to, people were huddled all around me. A student nurse saw the whole thing from her car and had already immobilized my head and shoulders just in case I had a head injury. Everybody was asking me questions, “Where do you hurt?”, “What’s your name?”, “Can you remember today’s date?”, “Who is the president?” (most questions were asked to see if I had a significant head injury).

By the time they put me in the ambulance I was starting to come out of the fog. Then I remember thinking, “Huh . . . so this is what it’s like to ride in an ambulance.” When I was a kid, I didn’t realize that riding in an ambulance would involve so much pain!

By the time we arrived at Baylor Dallas ER I began to realize that I didn’t brake any bones – but there was an incredible burning pain coming the right side of my body. Remember my sliding 20 feet on the pavement? Enter: road rash. Here’s a visual: take a concrete center block and use it to scrape skin off your body – road rash! It’s essentially a 2nd – 3rd degree burn. I’ve got road rash on my right forearm, on my right tricep, 2 places on my shoulder blade and on my right hip (the one on my hip is as big around as my hand with my fingers spread apart). I would show pictures but this is a family-oriented blog!

The worst part about road rash was when the nurse cleaned it. I’ll simply say that although I didn’t cry when I wrecked that wasn’t necessarily the case when he cleaned my road rash!

Kelly and I did, however, have a chance to laugh in the ER when they brought me a jumpsuit to wear home – it looked like a prisoner’s jumpsuit! Here’s an another visual for you: I walked out of the Baylor Dallas ER wearing a white (practically see-thru) jumpsuit, reeking of sweaty stinch from the bike ride, high from the IV morphine and covered in road rash! Surely this was one of Kelly’s proudest moments as my wife!

I’m actually doing pretty good considering. I’m walking around easily and I’m in pretty good spirits thanks to my pain medication. I love me some Lortab! I know this could have been a lot worse and I’m grateful that it wasn’t.

Kelly has been really great about not giving me a hard time about this . . . yet. I’m sure it won’t help much if I were to promise her that I will be even more cautious when I ride in the future. It sounds strange to say that these things just happen – but they do. I’ll give myself (and my bike) sometime time to recover and then I’ll start riding again soon.

Meanwhile Kelly, I’m sorry that I made you worry. I’m sorry that you were scared. You may not realize it, but I was scared until the moment you were by my side.