Cycling accident

Had a serious accident on October 13 in my routine 3-hour endurance training.

Bruises and cuts, several broken bones. Five of them, to be precise: collar bone, scapula and three ribs.

Any little movement in the right hand side of my body and I’m rewarded with deep pain. 

This was last week. I stayed in the hospital for the whole week, had surgery then spent the remaining days recovering, under medication and observation by a competent and sensitive medical team.

God bless them. All smooth and I’m feeling much better now. I was discharged a couple of days ago, now recovering at home, but going to office as well.

I have to go to the hospital everyday for routine checks and physiotherapy. I can move my shoulder and my body now, with much less pain. But my muscles lost the strength. Too weak to even raise my arm.

Today the doctor said I’m stupid because he gave me 1 month recovery in his report, so need not go to work. I should stay home, he says. Frankly, 1 month at home and I would die of boredom.

“C’mon doc, I need my routine!”

Philosophical mode

Before the surgery, lied in the hospital bed, I started thinking about life.

I consider myself a well-balanced person. I don’t do crazy things like some people I’ve known throughout my life. 

Like most of us, occasionally I do cross the line because… What. Because of the excitement, because I don’t want to be a boring person, because it helps me feel alive?

And this is my point.

We tend to forget how fragile our bodies are, how easy our lives can change in a split second due to some unexpected incident.

And the consequences of that little recurring “crossing of the line” we are used to.

Irrelevant things like speeding, jaywalking, whatever. “It’s okay”, we say.

Only that when shit happens, then it is definitely not okay.

I have kids to take care of, I need to provide. I have my other half who cares about me. I have a mother and a brother.

Causing harm to them due to an irrelevant “crossing of the line” that happened to go south is no fun and definitely not something they deserve.

My daughter

At some point, after the accident and yet to receive any medical treatment, I got transferred to a hospital by ambulance.

My other half and my 9 year old daughter stayed with me. I tried to stay positive at all times, ignoring the pain, keeping a good mood, even cracking jokes to entertain my little girl.

I wanted her to know daddy was fine.

However, in the ambulance, with the car moving around, the pain was unsustainable. I had to instruct the medic to go slower.

I was suffering, I yelled several times such was the pain. My little girl cried, witnessing daddy going through hell. It broke my heart and frankly, it hurt as much as my five broken bones.

I have no right to inflict emotional suffering to my loved ones, I thought.

The crash

I’m not sure what exactly caused the crash. It involved no cars, nobody, nothing. I was totally by myself, riding in a straight line, when all of a sudden I lost control of my bike.

I’m an experienced cyclist, I’ve been doing this on a daily basis for the past 4 years.

I join races locally and overseas, I have podium finishes in my records. So how the heck I lost control of my bike in a straight line with no one else involved is something I fail to understand.

Probably a pothole or something. Road bikes have narrow tires. It all happened so fast.

According to data from my bike computer, I was travelling at 37 km/h when it happened.

My last recollection before the accident, I remember glancing at the screen and I was at 42 km/h. Then I stopped pedaling as I approached a junction – and I recall checking there were no cars coming – so probably that was when I slowed down to 37 km/h.

Then I crashed.

Speed was not the main culprit of the seriousness of my injuries. Well, it was, but not the sole culprit. It was the way my body landed. I hit the ground shoulder first. Then head second.

Per Newton’s laws of motion, F = m a. So probably hitting the ground with my 65 kg body weight at 37 km/h it’s pretty brutal.

According to a friend of mine – a cyclist who happens to be a civil engineer that oversaw the construction of the 4th Macau-Taipa bridge, I trust he knows his stuff – he estimates the force of my impact was about 334 kg to 668 kg (assuming 1 to 2 seconds).

Let’s say the force was enough to brake 5 bones.

Hungry

I was hungry when I crashed. Not hungry for food, but hungry for speed, hungry to improve my performance, hungry to show myself that I’m strong.

It’s all part of building up my self confidence, my self motivation, in preparation for an upcoming race in November.

I was feeling good that day, I was hyped up. Speed is addictive. I wanted more, go the extra mile.

But I should have stopped because 5 minutes before my crash I had already reached the end of my training. I normally spend the last 20 minutes in recovery mode, pedaling slow to warm down my muscles.

This is what I was supposed to be doing when I crashed. Only that I didn’t. I kept going, kept pedaling hard.

A fellow cyclist told me afterwards: “you are not supposed to be riding at 37 km/h at that spot, with a road junction and limited visibility !”

I guess he is right.

My son

“Dad, after you recover from this crash, are you going back to cycling?”

Was this his way to show his caring for me? Boys are different and he’s 14 years old now.

“Yes, definitely. But probably in a more moderate way? I’m not sure.”, I replied.

“Are you going to join races like before?”

“Maybe not.”

“Maybe not? Dad, what kind of man are you?”

This conversation made my day.

My other half

She stayed with me for the whole week in the hospital. Slept in the couch, helped me with the paperwork and everything that a man with a broken body and a foggy mind under medication is unable to handle by himself.

Stuff like helping me take a shower, dry me up, wear my pajamas, take the medicine, making coffee (she even took our Nespresso to the hospital!), ordering food, feeding me.

That song from the Beatles comes to my mind:

“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64”. Only that I’m 47.

But how would it be without you assisting me in the hospital?

In fact, it turned out to be pleasant time spent together. Yes, even under these circumstances.

Enzo Ferrari

Legend says once after a fatal race accident that claimed the life of his Grand Prix driver, upon receiving the sad news Il Commendatore’s cold reply was “and how is the race car?”.

My Italian made Pinarello Dogma F is good, amazingly it only suffered a few scratches.

Nevertheless, during my stay in the hospital I had time to check for a new time trial bike that I was planning on buying anyway.

Purchase order made, my coach laughed at me big time.

“Yeah, that’s the spirit!”, he joked.

Once a cyclist, always a cyclist.