Wednesday, July 22nd was an awesome weather day for being the middle of July in St. Louis. I picked up my bike from a tune-up after work, it was ready a day sooner than they predicted. At sunset Dawn suggested taking it out for spin, maybe up to the restaurant/bar up the street to see if some friends who mentioned they’d be going were still there. They had already left, so we continued on to Tower Grove Park. It was dark, very dark in the park so we were taking it slow. I could only make out the dark outline of the trees that lined the path. I even turned back to Dawn once and told her to be careful, knowing there were speedbumps coming up. Next thing I know I hit that massive speedbump which turned my bike vertical and dumped me onto the pavement like a dump truck. My head hit first and I saw stars, then the wrist hit followed by the shoulder. I rolled onto my back and feeling the pain up my arm and close to my neck, told Dawn to call an ambulance. I’ve never really been in a situation like this were (1) I was thrown without having any reaction time to think about how I should land or (2) wondering if I had injured my head or neck more than I thought.

At the hospital for most of the night. Head and neck checked out OK (had I not had a helmet I’m pretty convinced i’d be in a coma or worse). I broke the left wrist, which needed to be re-broken at the hospital, and sprained and bruised my right shoulder pretty bad. Shoulder hurts the most. Not having one good arm pretty much made me immobile for four days. That and the percocet dosage limited me to the television to pass the time, where I zoned out watching more television in the last 4 days that I probably have this year so far. We kept Hollywood video in business for another week or so (they really still charge 5$ for a new release??). TV watched included: old Westerns, several cooking shows, The Wrestler, Deadliest Catch marathon, too many cop/criminal reality shows and the entire season of True Blood. I actually watched a few minutes of this show called ‘Miami Social” or something which follows these rich Miami thirty-somethings around with their problems, I can’t believe how terrible these people are and how quickly I hated them, even while on percocet.

Alright so, I’m back at work and off the heavy-hitting pain meds. Looking forward to a smaller cast and shoulder rehab in the coming weeks… as well as shopping for a very powerful front-light for my bike.

Oh and here’s a pic Geoff took when he came to the scene to pick up my bike (thanks Geoff). This is my wife Dawn peeking in to the ambulance where I was waiting to be carted off to.

Tags: accident, bike, tower grove park

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 6:20 pm.
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