Chapter 27: The Bloody Limb

A mighty group of riders grouped up at the end of my driveway as we headed out to meander about the flowing trails of Fairhill this morning. A 3-4 hour tour was on the docket. The group contained the following test pilots:

Buddy the leg breaker; Todd el presidente; Jay Jay; K-Man ; Les ( international man of mystery) ; Matt (run forest); Keith (bobby’s boy) (in town from Dillsburgh); Amazin’Andrew; Kurtee; and of course me, fatmarc.

The ride was flowing along very swimmingly. I had been dreaming about piecing together a series of loops that would ebb and flow from bank to bank of the Big Elk River. I was going to call it my George Washington loop for setting a record number of river crossings. Amazin’ Andrew was sporting the latest in Imperial Storm Trooper Gear.

Roughly half way through our amazing journey, we cross the fairgrounds and dove back into the trail. Matt (run forest) made one of his world famous asshole attacks, sprinting off of the front of the group. We are all familiar with Matt’s attacks and as such let him go. As the track formed a fork, Matt selected the left side. This of course was not the plan that I had. The group sans Matt headed up the right side knowing all too well, Matt would be joining us shortly.

Then off in the distance we heard a screaming. Then again, as if someone was being murdered. We spun around to see Matt in the trail, maybe 500 yards behind us. Matt was screaming, and began jumping up and down, trying to get our attention.

I commented to Amazin’ “Matt must have hit a bee’s nest” as we watch Matt flail around violently. Then Matt drops to the ground. Andrew comments, “he must be allergic” as we all sprint across the field to Matt.

When we reach him matt murmurs something like, “I fucked up…” Todd (el presidente)
Looks down at Matt’s leg and screams, “OH MY GOD! I’M OUT OF HERE TO GET AN AMBULANCE” Todd raced off to the fairgrounds. Matt, while turning around slipped off of his pedal and drug his calf straight down his big ring, creating a huge gash of flesh and muscle in his leg. Les, volunteers to ride back to my place to get a car, and his wife (who was riding with diane), and is a doctor.

The rest of us helped Matt out of the sun and into the shade and began to bust on him for riding his geared bike, for screaming like a girl, and for generally being Matt. He knows we love him. K-man, god bless him, held the two halves of the wound together.

Les showed up with the toaster, but alas Kathleen and Diane were still out riding. Luckily, there was a horse event at Fairhill today and an EMT was on staff. The arrived quickly, and began to get Matt together and loaded off for the hospital. All the time, incredibly, the cut really wasn’t bleeding much at all. And Matt displayed incredible pain tolerance as he calmly cracked jokes, and assured us that he was okay. I told him I wouldn’t put this on the blog, Matt retorted, “ why? This was great material. Where was my journalistic integrity?” Laughter followed again.

As the EMT lifted Matt into the ambulance, Buddy reminded him to be sure to get a sponge bath from a hot nurse. The EMT’s seemed to enjoy our jovial attitude and commented that Matt was a little guy and lifting him was really easy. He commented, “I’m much more used to having to lift some 400lb dude whose ankle is broken because it can’t support his weight.” We all laughed with that.

Todd, like all of us was a little green at the gills from our trip to the blood and guts channel. Todd so much so that he blew out his shorts. Back at the house we grouped up and quickly killed a sixer of magic hat, and a sixer of high life shaking off the scarring image of Matt’s bloody limb. This is where the term leg-gina got thrown out.

At the Hospital afterwards, Matt was still in great spirits. Wife Amy, and Step Father Charlie flanked him as the doctors finished wrapping him up. He was very lucky in that a cm the other direction and matt would have hit a vein, that would have been a very bloody mess. Additionally, just a bit lower and Matt would have hit the Achilles tendon which would be
another mess. In the end, Matt had just 24 stitches, 10 internal, 14 external, which was way lower than the guess we had which were closer to
the 40-50 range. He got some cool crutches, and a splint to support his foot. Probably out of action for a few weeks.

On the way to the hospital Diane and I stopped at Taco Bell, I got Matt a couple of Tacos, but Diane wouldn’t let me take them into him, She said, “you can’t take taco bell into an emergency room!” Matt is home resting now, we are all grateful his is safe, also grateful that we had such a good group, such level headed group and were able to get him out of the woods quickly. Mountain biking is an inherently dangerous activity; we all do it so much sometimes we forget this, and as Les, international man of mystery said, it’s when you least expect it that something weird happens.

respect
fm