Short-cut Cut Short - The Long Version of a Not So Long Story

[Rokie]

WARNING: ONLY READ THIS IF YOU HAVE TIME AND TOLERANCE FOR BORING STUFF
and that is not an advert line - honestly, I wrote this as therapy . . . for me

The beginning of a lovely riding day
After 1500 km of happy riding around the Southern Cape, spread over the December holidays, it was time to head home. My wife and kids were to take one car and my parents another. They all took the normal route from Jongensfontein, through Stilbaai towards the N2 and then down to Somerset West.

I was riding the Dakkie home and opted to take a short cut (i.e. go gravel) through Vermaaklikheid, past Witsand, over the river at Malgas, then Bredasdorp and eastward throught the likes of Klipdale, past Salmonsdam, etc. My mate, Marlon was bringing another tjommie from Cape Town for a day ride. They were ambitiously aiming to hook up with me at Witsand.

I set off on the road that I had ridden a few times before – especially the bit from Jongensfontein to Vermaaklikheid, which I even did more than once during the holidays.
(here’s a pic of one of those rides when I took my blondie on a coffee date)

 

[Rokie]

– so, it has become just a little bit boring, perhaps. Nonetheless, it was gravel and a good way to get into the groove – I was enjoying it.

In fact, I was enjoying it so much that I was singing into my helmet. Not just in my head. Out loud. I wouldn’t mind being able to remember what it was that I was singing, but I can’t. With hindsight, it may well have proven to be something quite profound. Maybe not. It was just one of those blissful ‘joi de vivre’ spans of time. Summertime. The living was easy. Fish weren’t quite jumping, but the weather was hot and life was good.

I pushed a little bit of speed onto my usual, relaxed riding style because I was worried that my mate Marlon would get to Witsand before me. After a while I realised that I couldn’t really push it that hard, because I was very low on fuel and there were no fuel stops on this part of the ride. I’d rather get to Witsand 10 minutes later if it meant that I had a better chance of not running dry. So I slowed down a bit and reckoned that if I made it through Vermaaklikheid before my fuel light came on, I’d be OK.

Vermaaklikheid was as charming as always. There were quite a few holidaymakers around and lunch at the restaurant was in full swing. Anyone who’s been through there recently will tell you how someone has put some effort into making the place look nice. There’s some tidy fencing with whitewashed (or I guess painted) fence pillars, a couple of small dams and some old farm implements decoratively displayed along the roadside.

I wasn’t taking any pictures, because I was in a hurry. I guess also because I’d been there on a few recent occasions. I had a decent look at things once again and heeded the call (from the people who love their children) to drive slowly. I’d barely started to pick up the pace after the end of the slow zone when my fuel light came on. “Ah, I’ll make it” was the first thing through my mind.

THEN . . . about 4 or 5 k’s after Vermaaklikheid . . . it happened . . .

 

[Rokie]

The incident
I noticed a road sign warning cars that they may find the road slippery, but I didn’t pay much attention – mostly because I wasn’t in a car, but also because my attention was grabbed almost immediately by a “hair-pin-bend-to-the-left” sign. I was coming up a slight hill – a blind rise. The “hair-pin” sign was right at the top of the blind rise. I didn’t slow down much (yet) since I knew that there would be some distance between the sign and the actual bend. This would give me time to brake well before the bend.

AND THEN . . .

I started to move to the left of the road, in anticipation. As I hit the top of the rise, right next to the “hair-pin” sign I could suddenly see over the top of the blind rise and got a bit of a surprise: the road did a slight bend to the RIGHT, before the leftward hair-pin. I was caught off guard - probably because I was too relaxed and just a bit absent minded – still humming into my helmet.

I reacted quite quickly, but incorrectly: I hit the front brake. The Anakee lost its grip and for a split second I thought I was going down as the front wheel locked and slid. My attentions awoke. My heart leapt, but I managed to let go of the brake lever in time to stop the slide and rescue the situation with no more than a quick squiggle. What a relief!

That was the good news. The bad news was that the front-wheel-slide meant that, in stead of following the road to the right, the bike was still following its momentum straight ahead. I ran out of road and out of talent at just about the same time.

[A better rider would probably not have let the front wheel slide in the first place – by going for the back brake in stead – but even if he / she did, the better rider would possibly have been able to gas it and power-slide through the unexpected right hander OR hit the back brake and lean toward the right and perhaps still make it through the bend. The problem with the first option would have been that he/she would shortly have had to face the hair pin bend with a lot of speed. The problem with the second option was the possibility of still going a bit too straight and going off the side of the road a few meters further, where there was a pole with a chevron arrow.]

 

[Rokie]

Me, I was way too verskrik (bewildered / shocked) to go anywhere near either of the brakes any more – funny how you suddenly feel like you’re riding on a bar of soap after a bit of a slide. In that split second between rescuing the slide and the part that’s no longer the road, I realised that I had run out of options and that I was definitely going to go down. Not only was there a gradual drop to the left, but the terrain was way too rough and a bit further on, full of chopped down tree branches. I was definitely going to fall.

I immediately had two very clear goals: 1. to make sure I miss the chevron pole on my right and the fence poles on my left; and 2. to try and keep the rubber down for as long as I could so that I’d lose some speed to make for a softer landing. This kinda made me relax a bit as I accepted the (very momentarily) pending doom. I thought very briefly about the inevitable pain, but I must admit, I never had my life flash before my eyes or thoughts of God or anything. Either I was in denial about the magnitude of the situation or I knew (or hoped) somehow that it wouldn’t be THAT bad. After all, I wasn’t going all that fast to begin with and I must have slowed down quite a bit already.

I did well with goal no. 1, but goal no. 2 was gone in a flash. It was as though someone jerked the bike from underneath me with a massive rope. It absolutely disappeared within a blip. I felt the pain in my right ankle as it got caught under the falling bike. I started to skid along the rough terrain on my right hip and shoulder – still with a pretty good view of where I was heading, but from a very unfamiliar vantage point. The next moment, my bike came flying over my left shoulder. The Dakkie obviously dug its front end into the rocky roadside, because it was now doing high cartwheels as it flipped out ahead of me.

During those few skidding moments I had two thoughts (again – seems two is the limit of my emergency processing capacity). One was, “Was I still going THAT fast – for the bike to have that much momentum?” The other was (with every crushing bounce of the bike), “Ouch, the poor bike. Eish, that’s going to cost me money. . .”

Then, very suddenly, in the middle of watching the Dakkie doing cartwheels in slow-mo, the visuals disappeared and I felt like I was being shaken violently. This was obviously because I started rolling and closed my eyes involuntarily – my world was shuddering heavily. I felt a fairly hard blow to the one side of my lower back – a little bit like that second guy, the big oke, that tackles you from behind after the first guy already managed to get you to a standstill. Boom! Right on the kidneys. Again I kinda knew it would be OK. Helluva painful, but OK.

 

[Rokie]

Then the shuddering stopped. Everything went dead quiet. The pain in my right knee came on like a light bulb. I immediately knew that this was what caused me to start rolling – the knee hit a rock. I looked down at it and realised that I was already standing. I didn’t remember getting up. I also immediately realised that I didn’t feel much of an impact on my helmet, so I didn’t hit my head hard at all. Also, no whiplash or spinal impact, so I took my helmet off and sat down to have a closer look at my knee.

My trousers (normal cargo pants) were torn open on both knees. The right knee pad had quite a heavy gash on the protective plastic cap. This was probably the knock that made it shift down a bit. It must have been a second knock that did my knee in. It hurt like hell but it didn’t look too bad – just a deep hole, right on the knee cap, about the size of a one Rand coin. Luckily the bleeding was relatively minor, but the PAIN! My left wrist was also a bit sore, but nothing like that friggin knee!

I hobbled along to the bike to fetch my phone from the tank bag. The bag and the phone were unscathed. I took a seat on the roadside embankment and conveyed as calmly as possible to my wife that they would have to turn around. It seemed I had mostly managed to keep her from stressing by down-playing the incident a bit. It was somewhere after 14h00.

 

[Rokie]

Samaritans
Did I mention the pain? Bliksem! This is what I knew was coming when I was still up and riding, aiming where to crash. “Get up you pansie”, I thought. “At least take a few pictures of the wreck or start picking up some of the plastic debris.” As I got up, a car came by and I flagged it down. For a moment I thought of saying, “Can you just hang on a sec while I take a couple of pictures,” but that just wouldn’t be right.

I noticed the CA number plates on the VW Touran. The dad got out to enquire while the mom and the 2 boys stared over at me in bemusement. I still had my jacket on and realised that I had started to sweat like crazy. It was still HOT. The boys jumped out and helped gather some plastic pieces (front fender, that lid behind the seat, mirror, etc.). With some considerable pain I bent my knee enough to get into the back seat with Junior no.1, while Junior no. 2 hopped into the boot on top of the luggage.

I gave my mate Marlon a quick call to tell him not to wait for me at Witsand. In the mean time Junior no. 2 was finding all of this to be quite a treat and proceeded to ask me a million questions. He also wanted to see the wound so I had to twist it toward him – again, with considerable pain. Junior no. 1 kept rolling his eyes and telling his little brother to leave me alone. I also almost felt like telling him to give me a break, but the more we interacted, the more I enjoyed the little fella and the more I realised he was doing a great job taking my mind off things. “It’s just AMAZING that you’re not even crying right now,” was my favourite line and it made me smile for the first time since before the hair-pin-bend-to-the-left sign.

We soon got to their destination – a lovely old cottage on the river, near Vermaaklikheid – where they were met by their hosts. Just before we got out of the car, Junior no. 2 said, “You know what, you actually did me a favour.” Junior no. 1 rolled his eyes again. “How’s that?” I asked. “It was quite fun riding in the back here with the luggage. I was getting really bored with that seat. If it wasn’t for you . . .” and he nodded and smiled infectiously.

After I slowly took off my jacket, I was offered EVERYTHING including a camping chair, which I used while removing my right boot and knee guard. Then I chose rather to lie flat on my back with my knees raised. Junior no. 2 offered me a pillow, but then quickly suggested that I simply used my boot as a head rest instead. I thought it was pretty cool and while Junior no. 1 and his friend made fun of him, I told Junior no. 2 what a star he was and that he was right – a boot was just as comfy and much more hard core than a pillow.

 

[Rokie]

While waiting for my people I got way enough ooh’s and aah’s to make me feel cared for, ice to put on my wrist (which was starting to swell and HURT), sweet tea to calm me down and even some pain killers from the neighbour who happened to be an anaesthetist and came over especially to check me out briefly. These people were just MARVELOUS!! It is amazing how much easier it is to handle pain when people are nice to you. And then those glorious Myprodols kicked in and took most of it away anyway.

Family to the rescue
My wife was a bit shocked when she found me on my back with the bloody knee and swollen wrist. My three-year-old looked a bit uncertain of things, but soon found it entertaining enough not to worry too much. The Samaritans kindly welcomed my family and started to offer more help. They even lent us a flat bed trailer to go and pick up the bike! My dad and I drove back to the scene of the crash, waited for some passers by and got the bike loaded on the trailer (as shown in the diagram of the fall). [Of course, as we pulled away with the loaded bike, those super-cool Samaritans also arrived, just to check that we were OK!! Told you they were just MARVELOUS!]  The wives and kids went back to Jongensfontein so long.

When we arrived in Jongensfontein with the bike it was already close to 17h00, so I phoned the doctor in Still Bay to ask them to keep the doors open for a few extra minutes. A fresh set of passers by helped my dad to get the bike into the garage and off we went – me and my crew to the doctor’s and my mom and dad to drop off the trailer in Vermaaklikheid and then back home to Somerset West.

Medical 1 – Small town hospitality
By the time I got to the doctor (around 5.25 pm) there was another slight casualty, so I didn’t feel too bad for keeping them late and started hoping that they would not charge for after hours. The doc was great – a real friendly small town old timer. He rinsed the wound thoroughly and picked as many little stones out from the minced meat as he could. Then he stitched it up and strapped some temporary support to my wrist. He also gave me a hand full of the good stuff that would last me till the next morning – no after hours charged. As I was leaving, another casualty arrived – all too happy that I kept the doc occupied for them to find the doors open so late.

 

[Rokie]

In the mean time my Superstar Sweetheart sorted out the kids with food and nappies and all the rest. We decided not to drive all the way home. We have friends in Bonnievale and made it there shortly after dark. Luckily the kids were in dreamland by then and we could go to bed without much fuss.

As I lay there – my knee throbbing away on top of a big fat pillow and my left hand suspended on top of me – my gorgeous curled up next to me and put her head on my shoulder. That’s when I realised I had a few undiscovered bruises. It hurt like crazy but I just drew her nearer, took a deep breath and felt the gratitude wash over me as the cool, calming breeze drifted in through the windows. Gently, from out of the darkness, the soft, fresh country air started to break the heavy heat of the day.

Despite the exhausting events of the afternoon, I found myself playing out the incident in my head, over and over. I considered every possible alternative to my reaction – what I could have done, what I should have done. I thought about my ruined record of never having injured myself on a bike – apart from the odd scratch or bump. I thought about how I was skidding along, waiting for the pain. I thought about that chevron pole and whether I would have hit it if I did try to power-slide through the turn. I thought about how all the tar road riding got me into the habit of the front brake and how I was conscious of it in previous dirt road braking situations, but got away with it.

I spent the night in short sleep stretches of one or two hours at a time between awakenings of discomfort. I even got up to go to the loo once. What a MISSION. Not only was my knee VERY unhappy with any disturbance, but my rugby-tackled back had also become quite unwilling to move. The pain killers helped a lot – for 6 hour stretches at a time – but it was still rather nasty. Despite the interruptions, the sleep felt really good and luckily I was able to snooze on into the late morning after the kids got up.

 

[Rokie]

Medical 2 – a number in The System
Eventually we went on our merry way. The final stretch of road was not too bad at all. I was able to sit reasonably comfortably, but I was quite relieved when I finally got to the hospital. The admin process was a bit of a mission, because I was trying to bypass the trauma doctor. This was something the GP in Stilbaai advised. It made perfect sense. I had seen a doctor. That doctor wrote me a reference to an orthopaedic surgeon. The next person I should see is the surgeon, but it took quite a fight to try and convince “The System” – which seemed to be a combination of the private healthcare provider’s profit motives and the surgeon’s pride: he does not take referrals from GPs when he is on call on weekends.

While I was putting up a fight, a couple of other patients arrived – one was an old timer with gastro, another was a student mountain bike chick with a broken collar bone. They got into the queue before me, so after loosing my battle with The System things progressed a bit slowly. I eventually saw the trauma doctor who sent me to x-rays where I came across this interesting bit of literature stuck up on the wall!!

Back from Radiology, the young trauma doctor looked at the spooky pictures of my knee and wrist and suggested that there may be no fractures to either the patella (knee cap) or any of the bones in my wrist. She didn’t sound too sure of her case. I overheard the conversation between her and an older doctor (presumably the radiologist) confirming that the knee cap was fine, but contradicting the diagnosis on the wrist. There was a fracture on the head of the radial (the bone on the thumb’s side of the fore-arm – I think), as well as a chip off the top corner of the other bone. Nothing was out of place, however, so no re-setting required. Thank goodness.

 

[Rokie]

Medical 3 – . . . the bliksem
I had to wait for the orthopaedic surgeon to come out of theatre where he was operating on the collar bone girl. He relayed the diagnosis to me and proceeded to put my forearm in a cast. The new stuff that replaced plaster of Paris is amazing. First he pulled a kind of sheep cloth sock over my arm and covered it with a thin layer of cotton wool. Then he took this gel impregnated bandage out of a vacuum pack, put a bit of water on it and quickly wrapped it around my arm like one would with a normal bandage. Then he held my wrist in position and gently squeezed and shaped the gel bandage like it was clay. Then rather suddenly (in less than 3 minutes) the whole thing set into a stone hard, fibre-glass-like cast.

In the mean time the trauma sister started to un-wrap my knee and asked the surgeon if he didn’t want to have a look at it. He didn’t like what he saw and immediately started removing the Still Bay doc’s stitches. When he saw me cringe he hinted to the trauma sister that today’s youngsters (he must be in his early fifties) are softies and that they should rather take away my motorbike, just in case I get hurt any further. I humoured him and the stage was set for exactly what he had lead me into – a good old testosterone tiff.

He wanted to start cutting away some of what he called dead meat. The trauma sister suggested that he should use a dentist’s needle (local anaesthetic) and not be rude to me. He refused her initial request and seemed intent on causing me to cringe some more. Luckily (or so I thought) the sister was quick on the draw and handed him the steel syringe before he could reach me with the surgical blade.

He said, “Give me four then,” and started to jab the needle into the wound with the same subtlety as that kidney thumping fat guy on the rugby field. He applied the same technique as the Still Bay doc – pulling the needle half way out, twisting it in a slightly different direction then re-inserting it to inject some more of the clear fluid into a slightly different area. However, he did it 5 times as violently and jeered at me with sadistic intent. Sarcastically he said that it was the trauma sister’s fault that I was experiencing so much pain, since she suggested the local anaesthetics while he was going to follow a much less painful path. Yea right!

 

[Rokie]

Sure enough he emptied four syringes on my knee. All of them with butcher brutal, needle bending jerks. Somehow I fell for his macho remarks and kept thinking, “Give me your best shot you bliksem!” and, “Is that all you’ve got you clean cut, styled hair, academic nurse boy!” – all the time cringing and wrenching the surgery bed with my good hand. The trauma nurse stood back a bit and as her eyes stretched, she quietly mouthed the words, “Are you OK?” over the meat man’s shoulder. He kept saying things like, “Nee wat suster, hulle moet maar liewer hierdie mannetjie se motorfiets wegvat jong. Ek weet nie of hy hierdie besigheid so lekker kan hanteer nie.” (“Nah, sister, they’d better take this little guy’s bike away. I don’t know if he can handle this business.”) I knew he was completely intentional about it, because the Still Bay doc did exactly the same procedure the day before while causing me but a fraction of the pain.

Just as he was done with all the needling and I let out a sigh of relief, he wiggled his finger right into the middle of the wound, saying, “I want to get right in there.” By this time I had had enough and klapped (hit) his hand out of the way saying, “eina bliksem!” His hand returned towards the wound too quickly to my liking and I aimed for it again, but this time he was holding a scalpel. He swung his head around and said very sternly, “Don’t touch my hand!” Now, I’m not in the business of arguing with okes who carry blades. When he started cutting I cringed again, realising he didn’t even wait for the local anaesthetic to take effect propperly. Again, I defaulted into the moronic testosterone response of, “see if you can hurt me, you nitwit” as I groaned through my teeth with my jaw clenching into another spasm.

Luckily though, it hardly lasted a few seconds. Not only did the anaesthetics start to work its magic, but Doctor Evil stopped cutting and said something to the extent of, “No look, this isn’t going to do the trick. There’s too much flesh damage here and I can still see a lot of dust and stones in the wound. I’d rather take this to the theatre.” He proceeded to explain how there was still some stuff hidden in the minced meat and that he didn’t want to risk infection, especially since it was right on the bone. He would rather cut it open further so that he could get in there and make sure it was clean.

 

[Rokie]

Surgery and beyond
So, I got wheeled away to be admitted. This only took a few minutes. The staff and the surgeon seemed in a bit of a hurry. Probably because he had a braai to get to. It was that time of a Saturday. I was lucky to get a single room (or ward) and I had time to give my wife an update over the phone. I received my theatre gown and a very sexy pair of, semi-see-through, one-size-fits-all, mesh/paper-towel underpants. Nasty piece of work! Two or three other nursing staff members all did their thing and before I knew it the drug doctor came and put me under. When I woke up, I was talking to yet another staff member. I realised by her reaction that I wasn’t making any sense and that she was used to it. I can’t remember what I said, but it was stupid enough to embarrass me into silence.

Once I was back in my room, I phoned my wife again. She brought the kids to come and check me out before they went to sleep. I guess I was a bit of a sorry sight, but again, for the 3 year old, the novelty of the place turned into excitement in no time. “No, you can’t climb up there. Leave that stuff. Where are you?!” Funny how, with the right people around you, life can feel so normal, so quickly. Kinda. She was also sweet enough to bring me some chocolates and a dirt bike magazine – not so much for the reading of course, but by means of saying, “I’m OK with you riding bikes and stuff . . .”  What a honey!

Some of my mates also came with varying degrees of the “don’t you know how to ride a bike?” theme.

Again, I spent a fair amount of time thinking about the whole deal. It happened quite unwillingly and I guess it is part of the human psyche to deal with shock in this way. This time, however, I wasn’t re-playing the crash or thinking about what I should have done differently. Instead, I was starting to consider the consequences of what could have been. What if I hit that chevron pole? What if I was going faster? What if it happened on my morning run to the station and there was a sidewalk? Or a car? What if I suffered some permanent damage or if I was paralysed? What if I died? Sure, there’s insurance cover, which would mitigate (to some extent) some of the financial impact on my young family – but what about the rest of it? Wife without a husband. Kids without a dad.

 

[Rokie]

Strange things happen
I know it sounds rather melodramatic, but this IS what went through my head. Two more strange experiences awaited me. One was that the morphine they gave me had no noticeable effect whatsoever. Maybe it helped a bit, but it certainly didn’t take the pain away. Not even close. I knew, because I had very recently experienced how well other pain killers can do the trick. I kept asking the nursing staff for pain relief and they kept telling me to wait for the morphine to kick in. After a couple of hours of nastiness one of the nurses acknowledged that some patients don’t react so well to morphine. She agreed to give me a couple of pills and the relief was back in a matter of minutes. Thank goodness!

By now it was rather late and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I passed out. It had been a long and treacherous day and I didn’t sleep well the night before. The still sweet world of unconsciousness came over me almost as swiftly as when I was put under in theatre. Then came the second strange experience: I suddenly found myself wide awake in the middle of the night. It was somewhere between 2 and 3 am and I felt the furthest from sleep that I can ever remember. I figure the drugs were messing with me, because this NEVER happens to me. I’m BIG on sleep. I don’t always have the luxury of long nights, but whether long or short, I sleep like a log!

I turned on the TV and found some sport – even some biking coverage: the Aussie version of the Dakar called the Australasian Safari and some SA Enduro or something. Then I got into this documentary that fascinated me no end. It was about the first ever non-stoop single handed sailing circumnavigation of the globe. The Sunday Times newspaper in London issued a competition – the Golden Globe Race. Sailors could set sail any time between 1 June and 31 October 1968. The first to finish would get £5000 and another £5000 would go to the sailor with the fastest time. A fascinating story ensued and the documentary focuses on a wild card who tried to cheat his way through. (If you can get your hands on “Deep Water“ (2006) it is well worth a watch.)

I have the trailer to the movie somewhere and will try to post it here as soon as I find it again . . .

 

[Rokie]

One of the participants was a French guy (Moitessier) who’s wife was interviewed extensively and she described with passionate French flair how she saw the world of a man on a mission. I wish I could remember it word for word, but it amounted to the futility of trying to stop a man once he has set his mind on something. Of course, this was music to my ears at the time and I was inspired again to dream of the stuff we all crave – the stuff adventures are made of. Again, it may sound overly dramatic, but this is how I felt. It was almost like I had another injury to recover from – the one in my head (ego / pride / confidence / guts / daringness) as much as the ones to my body.

I was still awake when the nurse did her 5 am rounds, but shortly after that the blissful, deep nothingness took over again . . .

Now, eight weeks later (I wrote this in March), the cast has been removed from my arm and my knee bares only a scar. There’s still some way to go to full recovery on the inside, but it feels like my head is sorted and I’m ready to ride . . . as soon as I’ve fixed the Dakkie . . .

 

[Lourens]

What a read! You describe everything so well I can feel the pain myself!  Glad you are much better now and ready to tackle some more riding.  :thumleft:

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Buzzlightyear]

I know that exact bend where you came off.

Hectic, glad you came off relatively ok

 

[rcerrie]

Eina, my knie is sommer nou ook seer, bly jy is ok..........oja uitstekende skryfstyl.  :thumleft:

 

[Swart Baard]

Its now 6am and this was a very nice read.

Your discription of the events are so real. It even made me reach for my own knee to make sure its still ok.

More so on the pshycological side, it made me aware of how quickly things couldd be different.
Will be easy on the GS throtle that's for sure.

Glad you ok to ride another day ;-)

 

[Riaanrw]

Nice writing skills there Rokie. I enjoyed reading your saga. Glad you came out with minor injuries and will ride again.  :thumleft:

 

[steady eddy]

Good writing skill there. :thumleft: