Steel Wheels

Saturday, December 16, 2017. A date which will live in infamy.

I had planned on a Saturday bike ride. I was doing a lot of yoga back then, and liked to change it up every so often. My ride was (and is) a Scott CR1 Team, with the black/green/white livery, for those in the know.

We were scheduled to go to a Golf Channel holiday party that night to celebrate with the other Live Tournament folks. I figured that 30-plus miles on the bike would allow me an extra glass of wine.

Central Florida has a fairly decent network of paved bike trails. On that day, I was coming home via the Cady Way Trail, part of which borders a New Urbanism neighborhood called Baldwin Park. The plan was to exit the bike trail at Baldwin Park and then ride home, which was about three more miles.

I made a very slow turn left from the wide paved trail onto a narrow concrete sidewalk. I hit a patch of sand, and the front wheel started to go out from under me. The choices were to bail right into the grass, or tumble over a low retaining wall to the left, a two-foot-high barrier that separated the sidewalk from an apartment building’s lawn. I was only moving at about 3 mph, which actually makes it a lot harder to unclip and put a foot down.

I held the bike upright as long as I could, fighting it. Overcorrected to the left while trying to find the brakes and unclip. The bike drifted left, toward the wall. My left leg began dragging along the sharp brick edge of the retaining wall, cutting into my lower leg. I was able to stop the bike without laying it down, unclip, and step off.

At first, I thought it was just road rash. It hurt like a bitch. Then I took a closer look.

There was a hole in my leg. The gash was a good inch deep. I thought it might have gone to the bone. I walked my bike over to a tree, leaned it up, and then sat down to gather my breath.

The fear started to rise. In retrospect, I know that I was in shock. My wife was getting her hair cut, which I knew was a long process, so she would have her phone turned off. I thought of my son, then 16 years old, who was home and had his driver's license. I called him and described my situation, asking him to come pick me up and take me to a walk-in clinic somewhere. I actually had half a mind to just ride the damn thing home and deal with it later.

“Dad,” he said, “you need to call 9-1-1.”

I thought about it for a second and told him I would call him back. There was a woman walking to her car in the apartment building’s parking lot. I called to her and asked for the address.

“1333 Lake Baldwin Lane,” she said. I texted that to my son.

I took another look at my leg. It looked like someone had cut into a thick ribeye. The bleeding was minimal, but I could see tissue moving back and forth as I moved my leg. This was not good. So, for the first time in my life, I dialed 9-1-1.

I should mention that two young guys who lived in the apartment building happened to walk by as I was on the phone with my son, and stayed there until I hung up. One of them ran back into his apartment and grabbed a first aid kit and two bags of ice, and laid them at my feet while I was on the phone. They asked if I needed anything. I hope karma pays those guys back.

The 9-1-1 operator listened to my comments and immediately transferred me to the Orlando Fire Department. I gave them the address and answered a couple of questions about my physical state. The ambulance — and a full-sized ladder truck — arrived within 10 minutes. I was supremely embarrassed. This is so stupid, I thought.

The EMT’s jumped out, swaggering casually, as they do. “Hey, looks like we had a little mishap here. You okay?”

I unwrapped a long-sleeve shirt that I had wrapped around the wound; my idiot version of a tourniquet. I watched their expressions when my leg was exposed. One of the EMT’s actually winced and turned away. Another one said, “yeah, that’s a pretty good one.”

Right away, I felt less stupid about calling them.

My son pulled up within a few minutes of the ambulance. He would tell me later that he had never heard me speak to him the way I did when I called him. He said he could hear the fear in my voice, and that he had never heard anything like that from me. He took my bike, helmet, sunglasses, bloody shirt, and my bike shoes, one of which was now stained dark red.

Because I was deemed a non-emergency, there were no sirens on the ambulance during the ride to Orlando Regional Medical Center. While I had requested Winter Park Memorial, the EMT’s strongly urged me towards ORMC. They said that given the nature of my injury, I would likely be sent to ORMC anyway. I would later learn that ORMC is the only Level I trauma center in Central Florida. As one resident would later tell me, every gunshot wound in Orlando ends up at ORMC.

The EMT who eventually drove me to the hospital said he would have passed out with the injury I had. The EMT who rode in the back with me was a cyclist himself, and described a few of his own mishaps. He was looking inside my leg as we weaved slowly through traffic. At one point, he remarked how incredible it was that I didn’t cut an artery. I asked him what would have happened if I did.

“Well,” he said, “we’d have the sirens on right now. And you’d be first in line at the emergency room.” The same emergency room where Orlando gunshot wounds show up.

I was eventually placed in an examination bay at ORMC. There was still no pain, really; adrenaline and shock. My son showed up soon after I arrived, bringing a change of clothes and my wallet, as I had asked. He was an absolute hero. Thank God that kid is as responsible as he is. My wife showed up soon after.

Initially, the nurses and doctors thought that surgery would not be required. They didn’t think I had ruptured anything, the nearby arteries had (miraculously) been missed, and nothing was broken. After several hours of being poked, prodded, and grilled by various members of the staff, I finally was examined by one of the surgical residents, who took a couple of photos and said he wanted to consult with his boss, the surgeon on duty.

Half an hour later, I learned that I would be staying overnight and having surgery in the morning to repair a “damaged tendon.” Slept fitfully in the hospital room. They woke me up every couple of hours to check vitals. Finally got moved downstairs at about 6am the following morning. I remember being moved from the gurney to the surgical table, and an oxygen mask being placed over my mouth. Then I was gone.

Woke up on a moving gurney, heading towards recovery. Pretty sure I threw up over the side of the rail, although that may have been a dream. My leg was in searing pain. I’ve never felt anything like it. They parked me in a recovery bay and left me for a minute. It was like an electric charge was being applied to my shin. I begged for painkillers. It was excruciating.

Came to find out that it wasn’t a “damaged tendon.” It was three severed tendons, all of which had snapped like rubber bands. They didn’t know it until they got inside my leg. They had to make the incision bigger, so I have, to this day, a Harry Potter lightning bolt scar on my left ankle. It's pretty gnarly. You should see it. I have steel mesh inside my leg where the surgeon repaired the damage.

I was in a cast for several weeks, on crutches and then on a scooter. To this day, I cannot wear flip-flops, as I have lost almost all dorsiflexion in my left ankle. I can ride a bike — and I still do — but I will likely never jog again. I still kinda clop when I walk.

I once heard this bromide: there are only two kinds of cyclists -- those who have *had* a serious accident, and those who will *be* in a serious accident. Hopefully, I am a one-and-done.