Not me – my wife, Margo.

Before Crashing

While I have been trail riding and trail running on technical trails since 1988, my wife Margo, although fit, generally stays off of steep, rocky stuff. She likes rail trails, or the easy trails near Lake of the Woods (Oregon) – but she only gets on single track about once per year.

I was delighted, of course, last Sunday when she agreed to do a “real” mountain bike ride with me. We headed out from home and rode to Moore Park via the Link River Trail, then up the Ridgeview, Blueberry and Linda’s Trails then we descended via the Half Gallon and Big Sky Trails.

Note small hole in tights

As we rode I tried to let her know when various hazards were coming, and we both walked through most of the rock gardens. We were almost to the bottom of Big Sky Trail, and ready to finish up on a couple of easy trails, when I (foolishly) commented, “Well, you made it. No crashes. Great job.”

And while we rode the last bit of trail I was hoping that she would suddenly start to love “real” mountain biking, and was thinking how if she did like it she would really need a newer, better bike than the super heavy ten year old hard tail she rides – I heard her crash behind me.

It was sort of a freak accident on a slightly rocky downhill section approaching the last switchback on Big Sky Trail. I turned back to see her prone on top of her bike – she had evidently done an endo.

“Are you alright?”

“I don’t don’t know which way to move my leg,” she said. She couldn’t get her left leg off of her bike. She was stuck.

I dismounted and ran back to her, and immediately lifted her, by her hips, straight up off of the bike, rotated her to a supine position, and placed her on the ground next to her bike.

“Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so.”

She stood up and I noticed she had a little hole in the front of her (brand new) tights. The upper, inner left thigh.

“We better check that.” She pulled down her tights and there was a small wound about one square centimeter with some subcutaneous fat bulging out and a small trickle of blood. It looked just like an incision for a laparoscopic port. “Shit! It went in. We need to get you to the emergency department to deal with this.”

Surprisingly, she seemed fine. No pain. Very little bleeding. She did not appear to be in distress other than being understandably freaked out. It’s fortunate that Margo didn’t realize what had actually happened until much later.

Before Treatment

I made a makeshift bandage out of a bandanna I carry with me for this exact purpose, we pulled her tights back up, and began to ride out. I didn’t want to have to ride all the way home so I called a friend to meet us at Moore Park to take Margo to the hospital. It turns out she was 100 miles away on a kayak trip. We then called our son Terry and he loaded up his three small children and met us at the gingerbread house at Moore Park.

I don’t recall ever seeing Margo pedal a mountain bike so quickly on a trail as that last mile or so back to the gingerbread house! I trailed behind her marinating in “survivor guilt.”

Terry dropped us off at the Emergency Department and brought our bikes home. This was our first ED visit in twenty plus years. I’m sorry to admit that I “pulled the doctor card” and asked them to tell the ER doc on call that I was there (we’re personal friends) and we got right in. So much for hours of waiting in the ED reception area.

“She’s a rock.”

From there it was uneventful. This was a very blunt trauma; but it was clear from the bruise on the back of her thigh that when she crashed the brake lever handle went all the way through her and hit the back of her thigh. Luckily, because the end was so blunt (it actually had a bulb-like tip) it didn’t cut anything and surely went right around any nerves or blood vessels.

Treatment consisted of a tetanus booster, a gram of Ancef (antibiotic), flushing the wound out with sterile saline, and then trimming the rough areas and bulging subcutaneous fat. She was also given a prescription for ten days on an oral antibiotic. No sutures (so it could drain if need be).

After Debridement

Margo was a rock. It reminded me of the line in Repo Man where Bud lies to Otto that his wife is pregnant and he needed Otto to take her car (actually getting Otto to repo a car for him). Later Otto asks, “What happened to your old lady?” Otto replies, “My old lady? Oh, shit, I forgot all about her. Well, she’ll take the bus. She’s a rock.”

After it was all over and she finally realized what had happened, and how far that stupid brake lever handle penetrated her thigh, well, she started getting a bit dizzy. Every time we got up to leave she had to lie down again; but we eventually went home. Poor Margo.

Relaxing after a bike ride

At this point, four days later, she’s doing fine and still only has minimal pain. But “it’s creepy pain” she says – because it is only in the back of her leg, not where it went in.

Doing an internet search on this injury I find that it really isn’t an uncommon injury, although I hope to never see it again. In some cases the brake lever had become stuck in the injured rider. And the thigh is the most common site, but not the only site. There are some pretty gruesome descriptions of this injury if you want to check them out.

She didn’t want to put the tights back on

I’m happy I just pulled her up off of the brake lever immediately. Some of these poor people were clowning around for hours with a person stuck to the bicycle. That sounds unpleasant and might be an example of people making things more complicated than they need to be. See the video below for an example of a brake lever that actually became stuck in a young woman’s thigh.

This young woman had an injury similar to Margo’s injury

After this injury I doubt that I will get Margo back out on the single track any time soon – but I truly do think it is important that she at least get back on her bike again soon; otherwise she may have difficulty enjoying riding her mountain bike again.

As for me, I already rode that some trail again. Here is a photo of my bike placed at the spot (and position) where she crashed:

This is my bike at the site of Margo’s crash

If anybody has any experience with this type of injury, or if you have any comments at all, please reply below.

Sorry about the lack of atrial fibrillation content in this post. Scroll down for plenty of a fib content.