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Injuries...any gruesome stories to share?

3K views 33 replies 19 participants last post by  Michael1929 
#1 ·
Ran into a guy who told me he broke his neck at Mt. Penn (Reading, PA) last year. He's been walking the local greenway since recovering. That's where I ran (not literally) into him. I told my wife (bad move) about it and she kind of freaked out saying not to tell her stuff like that. :)

Anyway, I've had some pretty big crashes myself (cracked helmet, busted lip, sore back due to OTB, eaten dirt) but nothing quite to that magnitude. No broken bones or hospital visits, knock on wood.

What you got?
 
#2 ·
I've had a few scraped knees, once sprained my thumb riding some pathetic stairs, great when using thumb shifters...

Mate decided to break his neck and collarbone (couple weeks in a coma) on one of our rides, that was an unpleasant experience.
 
#5 ·
I have never been seriously injured on the mountain bike, motorcycle that's different.
My dad however, probably about 10 years ago now, had a relatively minor get off into the woods clipping a tree. When that happened however, somehow his right shifter ended up impaling his leg. The entire Rapidfire shift lever was jammed in there the whole way up to the handlebars. He was stuck on the bike and could not move. Thankfully my brother was riding with him at the time and was able to go get help. He was eventually able to pull the bike out of his leg and hold his hand over to slow the bleeding.
It was an incredibly bad blunt injury, that could have been extremely life-threatening had he been in the woods by himself, as even after he was able to get the shifter out of his leg he was not able to move.
 
#9 ·
Wow, they really do have a sub forum for EVERYTHING now. My bad. Mountain uni forum next?
It's not that I don't want to read about gruesome injuries fellow riders have suffered. It's just that when that urge arises I know I've got a whole forum I can run to, to see the latest. :eek:ut:

Pretty stupid forum in my opinion. What's wrong with an occasional thread about this kind of thing in General or Passion. Do people really go over to that forum to view the latest injuries? I doubt it, if so maybe a full investigation into such people [serial killers] might be warranted.
 
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#11 ·
I have lived in my small MTB town for 3 years and in that time I have seen or heard of;

3 broken collar bones on my riding buddies
Neighbour broke his neck, fully recovered
Broken arm
Broken eye socket
broken leg
Cracked ribs
Lots of bad bruises and abrasions

I have 29 stitches from mtb, sprained my thumb twice, lots of bruises and abrasions and count myself lucky.

I heard a story about a guy who lost a thumb, but can't verify it.
 
#15 ·
Fractured my neck. I was lucky, I pushed my bike out, loaded it onto my car, drove home, took a bath, ate dinner and drove myself to the ER. I knew I had really racked my back up but I had no idea I'd fractured my neck. I ran off a bridge and pretty much did a pile drive of my head into the ground. Helmet didn't crack. I didn't pass out but my vision was messed up and took a good while to get my wits about me.

Dethwshbkr's dad's crash sounds a lot worse, that had me cringing.

Come on DJ, whatcha got?
 
#17 ·
I was living in Japan and went for a ride with a buddy. He brought along a friend of his that I never met, supposedly a semi famous rock climber.

So this guy I don't know has a drivetrain that sounds like a rock grinder. I keep asking him if he wants me to adjust it. Nope. Nope. Everytime he tries to shift it sounds like it is tearing the entire wheel apart. Nope, still doesn't need my help. Dude's super cocky.

We get to a short, but very steep pitch that you have to grind out of saddle. He brings up the rear, doesn't attempt shifting to lowest gear until he's already on the pitch. Wheel sounds like it is being ripped in half again. Chain snaps. POP!

When the chain snapped his foot slipped forward in front of the pedal, body sent over the bars and levered that Achilles tendon into the pedal. The pop was the tendon severing completely.

I've never seen such pain in another human being except during my own testicular torsion (non biking). We shimmy him and the bikes about a mile to the trail head. Seems retarded, but he insisted we do that instead and get help to the trail. We drive him to our base hospital ER. His GF shows up so we leave him.

I see him a few weeks later at the hospital. Surgery failed. Tendon snapped or something. Infections. Possibly going to need amputation. Will never have decent use of foot again. Rock climbing career is over. About to be flown stateside to have a specialist deal with it.

I felt so bad for him, but why, WHY would he not let me fix his drivetrain that day!?!? Since then I've never grinded steep **** out of the saddle and NOT thought about how easily I could snap my tendon.
 
#23 ·
Same here 1.5 years ago.

Snow skiing off a jump I didn't see and wasn't ready for. Landed on my head. Shattered my right clavicle where it connects to the sternum. Fractured sternum and 3 broken ribs.

Sticks out about an inch still.

Skin Human leg Joint Wrist Muscle
 
#26 ·
1) 6 years ago, my front tire got trapped in a rain rut when DHing. I went OTB , shattered my dominant wrist and smashed my face (I was wearing my regular helmet, not my ff) . I had to walk my bike down about half a km to where Chris and our guide were stopped. My wrist was reset that evening and I had surgery the next day (plate and 10 pins)

2) One year ago, I had a terrible crash on a steep, muddy section of DH. Polytrauma (gazillion bones and soft tissue injury, despite wearing ff and all my protective gear) Had to be airlifted to a trauma centre. I'm alive and kicking and still riding... and running and lifting weights :)

Those were my worst injuries
 
#32 ·
My most gruesome crash was an OTB face-plant onto a rock. I got it right between the eyes, it broke my nose and my glasses. One half of the broken lens of my glasses was driven into the bridge of my nose/forehead so far that it was impaled under the skin of my forehead and I had to pull it out trail-side in order to be able to see properly so I could get back to my car.

I was solo, and had a couple of rocky kilometers to ride out to my car. I gave passing thought to finishing my ride (I don't get many chances to get out on the bike, and hated the thought of cutting it short), but I was bleeding pretty badly. Wisdom prevailed and I drove myself home to shower and change before heading off to the ER. The ER doc did a fantastic job with the stitching, I barely have a scar now.
 
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