The Great Crash of 2010

March 31st 2010 is a day I’ll remember forever, if only because I was asked to state that date about 100 times by several concerned health service staff. Ironically I’d been to see David O’Doherty the night before and he mentioned that we probably have only ten important events in our lives and the rest of the time is pretty boring. What I wouldn’t give for a little tedium now.

I left home at 8am and for the first time ever I forgot my keys. That suggested something was up. Twenty minutes later I was cycling to work when one of those ten important events happened.

I don't remember much about the crash. I was tearing down St Kilda Road as fast as an over weight cyclist like me can go when I think another cyclist braked suddenly in front of me. I went over my handlebars in what I assume was a triple summersault with tuck, last seen in the 10 meter diving competition at the Beijing Olympics.

Next thing I remember I was on a gurney in the trauma centre of the Alfred Hospital being fussed over by a lot of pretty women in uniform. They wheeled me in for a CT scan which was pretty scary. Head injuries were their main concern while not being whisked to a spaceship was mine as being slid into one of those things is like being transported in a claustrophobic time machine.

I was taken back to the trauma area so a doctor could stick a few stitches in my forehead while telling me she was the only member of her family that can't sew a hem in a skirt (which didn't fill me with confidence) and she checked my blurred vision with an eye chart application on her Iphone. God bless Steve Jobs and his philanthropic work, I thought. The only problem is that Iphones have a power saving devise which causes them to go blank after a few seconds of non-use. When this happened 30 seconds into my eye test, I let out a shriek, assuming I’d gone blind. I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box at this point, I should stress.

When it was all done and dusted and my cycling gear had been cut off me in the best traditions of ER, they broke the news to me that I had fractured my right eye socket, just in the place where my glasses had smashed into my face (so I'm blaming my Buddy Holly specs for that one) and broken the arterial bone in my right elbow. I think that's the funny bone, so this blog would have been twice as witty if it was still intact, but more worryingly, that's my drinking arm and also the one I use for scratching, so I'm going to be sober and itchy for the next six weeks.

What they didn't tell me and left me to discover for myself was that I had met the road face first and as a result I look like a side of uncured bacon. My mister universe application will have to be put on hold.

They kept me in overnight for observation. They seemed mainly concerned about the eye socket and how vision was poor in my right eye. I pointed out that this was due to my short sightedness and it would have been fine if my glasses hadn't been smashed earlier, but you can't tell these health care professionals anything.

As a result, I have to go back on Tuesday morning to have a titanium plate put into my eye socket (which will make airport security interesting in the future).

The arm is bothering me more to be honest. I get spasms when I move it which are as a painful as childbirth (at least my own birth which is the only one I'm familiar with) but they've given me pain killers that would knock out a horse. Having said that, they would have shot a horse if he was in my condition but only after they had stopped laughing at the sight of a horse on a bike.

My wounds are being dressed three times a day by my loving partner and I'm catching up on loads of DVDs. The only problem is that my only working glasses were smashed in the crash and I can't wear lenses as my eye looks like a blood orange. So I'm condemned to wearing prescription sunglasses. Now I know how Bono feels, permanently living in a sepia world.

Despite all of the above, I actually count myself lucky. St Kilda Road is busy on a Wednesday morning and I fell just inches from the menacing wheels of several large automobiles. Also head butting the road is not a sensible activity and could have led to serious noggin problems. Clearly my mother was correct when she said that my brain was in my backside.

I was also lucky with my timing as Emergency rooms are at their quietest at that time of the week. I got excellent care, with specialists queuing up to prod me as the day went on. The morphine also helped it must be said and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that all the fussing and hi-tech equipment didn’t bring out the little boy in me.

They kept asking me where I was and what date it was to check if the old brain was working. But I won’t forget 31st March, 2010 in a hurry. It was my first time ever in an ambulance, first ever stitches, first ever broken bone, first ever night in a hospital as an adult, first ever time in a wheelchair.

I’m at home now, learning to use my left hand for things that nature never intended and licking my wounds. The good looks are slowly coming back but the confidence to get back on a bike might take longer. Next time I’m wearing a motor bike helmet and a suit of armour.