Cochran Mill

I've been doing a lot of my local rides at Blankets Creek, lately. This past Wednesday, I figured I'd change it up a bit and ride Cochran Mill. It had been a while since I'd been there and I love that place, so it seemed like a great idea, at the time.

What I neglected to consider, though, is that Cochran Mill is cursed. I'd crashed, pretty hard, 2 out of the last 3 times that I'd ridden there. All super random, too. The first time, I have no idea at all, what I hit, I was just suddenly OTB and ended up busting a rib. The next time, I was following my brother and caught a rock with my pedal that I didn't see because I was too close to him. OTB again and ripped my elbow up really bad.

But, then I had one good ride there, and I figured the curse was lifted.

Oh, far from it!

On the green loop, as you're headed back toward the road, there are various little bumps that I think were constructed. I always try to keep in mind that there is a set of 3 that looks like a set of 2 until you're in the middle of them, but I rememebered them being further down the trail than they were. I also didn't remember coming out of a curve into them.

At any rate, I rode into them, thinking it was just 2, and manualed them, as one does. Then I realized that there were three, got way back as the front came down, and nose-bumped the third one. Since it's kind of in a curve, and I was in the air for a bit, when I landed, I was just off-trail. I was also coming down pretty front-heavy, and way behind the seat. During the split second I was off trail, I hit something. No idea what, but it basically stopped the bike under me and my pelvis slammed into the seat from behind.

So, the seat is normally like this:

When I hit it, it broke the rear bolt, tipping it up like this.

And then as my body continued forward, it broke the seat completely off and this jagged, broken bolt...

Ripped right through my shorts, and right through my scrotum.

It was all super fast though. During all of that I was also jumping over the bars and throwing the bike out from under me. While in the air, I had to use my right forearm to glance off of a tree too. The whole maneuver was pretty complex, and since I actually landed on my feet at the end of it, for a second or two, I felt pretty good about how seemingly successfully I had bailed. Then I felt the breeze down below, and realized that my shorts were ripped open. Then it started to hurt, and I figured I'd given my nuts an atomic racking. A minute or so later, I could tell that it was worse than that, and after taking a quick look, it appeared that I would need stitches for sure.

My shorts were ripped open, but I keep a shirt in my top tube bag just to fill space, so I made a skirt out of that. I then picked up all of the broken parts that I could find and walked back to the truck.

I immediately thought of Mark B. who had a similar incident when a lady pulled out in front of him on the road and he went flying over the roof of her car. Couple of stitches, and he was fine. That seemed likely in this case too. It hurt like the dickens to walk around, but if I sat or stood still, it wasn't all that bad. Way less than I'd expect, at least.

I was thirsty and hungry, but really I just wanted something sweet to comfort myself with, so I put on my boxers and stopped at Charlie's on the way out, not realizing that I was bleeding all down the back of them. I can only imagine what the guy behind me in line must have thought.

The closest ER was actually the Cobb WellStar, which is also the nearest ER to my house. So, I went there, and checked in. They were super busy though, I wasn't dying, and I wasn't bleeding too terribly at the time, so it took some time.

After a while though...

Drip.

Drip drip.

All the walking around, changing positions, and skin contracting made it bleed more and more. Also, as a result of said walking around, changing positions, and skin contracting, one of my dudes had become completely exposed, which I discovered, to my horror, later, in the bathroom. It was definitely going to require more than a couple of stitches.

An AP checked it out: "Yeah, I can't do anything for this" and referred me for surgery. The poor urologist on call had to rush over from Kennestone. They only had one room available for me to wait in, in the psych ward. "You might hear some screaming." There was a lot of screaming.

A little while later, I was off to the OR. The consult with the anesthesiologist went like: "Any number of terrible things could happen, I'll enumerate them for you... [long list of horrible things] ...so, just sign here if you're cool with all of that." And you do, because you want all of your parts back together. Then nothing terrible happens and you feel bad that they're legally obligated to go through all of that with every patient. I'll bet some patients get really scared and the doctors have to handle that somehow.

When I woke up, I remember having the urge to talk to the nurse in Portuguese and having to make an effort not to. I have no idea why, and we joked about it a little later. People have weird urges and they say weird things as they're waking up.

It turns out that, as gruesome as the injury sounds, it's pretty easy to fix, and is surprisingly not painful after. Basically, if I wasn't actively fumbling with the wound site, then it didn't hurt at all.

It sure does bleed though. My goodness. I met with an AP the next day who said that they like for wounds like this to bleed a bit, so they don't stitch them up with too many sutures. The bleeding helps flush out infection and prevents swelling, which prevents pain. We both got a good chuckle out of talking about it too. It's funny when someone takes a shot to the nuts, as long as they're ok. At that point I was ok, so at that point, it was funny.

I went home Thursday afternoon in mesh granny panties with a bunch of what turned out to be very inadequate dressings stuffed into them. I ran by the Walgreens to pick up the antibiotics that they prescribed me and had the most awkward consult of my life with the pharmacist. Actually, it wasn't that awkward for her. Like all the other health care professionals that I'd interacted with over the past few days, she was super, supr pro. It was really awkward for the guy standing nearby waiting for his prescription though, or at least I gathered that it was from his animated body language as it occurred to him what we were talking about.

Me: "...something, something, gruesome injury... ...like a pad for the heaviest flow imaginable. Something like that."

Her (as if she gets this kind of question all the time): "Ah yes, on aisle such-and-such we have [rattles off various brands and specs] but I think you should try the Depends undergarments on the endcap of this other aisle [rattles off additional specs and rationales]..."

She was right, and I ended up doubling up on two different Depends products:

And man, I'm glad I did. I'd bleed through the stuff they sent me home with from the hospital in under an hour, but the doubled-up Depends would last about 3 or 4, and longer if I was sleeping.

Still, it seemed like a lot of blood.

When I'd stand in the tub, about to take a shower, it would drip once every two seconds or so. An AP called me back Friday and after talking to her about it, she was like: "Yeah, that's way too much blood."

From there it was a bit of a goose chase, as they had never taken my ID or insurance info at the hospital, only had some old info for me from like 2016 when I'd come in once for a broken rib, thought I was still on Humana, and sent me to a urologist that was out of network for my actual insurance. The appointment also got set up incorrectly in the various systems. One had me for that day, another for the following Monday. I had to go back and forth from the 4th to the 2nd floor a couple of times to figure out what office to be at too. The bathroom was also all the way at the very other end of the hall from the office... So much walking. It was the absolute last thing in the world that I wanted to do. Everything got straightened out eventually though, they took a good look, and sent me back at the ER for a few additional sutures.

According to one of the PAs in the ER, word had gotten around about my injury. This seemed like the case, as I kept getting some variant of "So you're that guy?" whenever someone new would see me. They took a photo of the injury when I'd first come in, to send to urology. I bet that made the rounds too.

Modern emergency healthcare is a hell of a system. It's definitely a little clumsy; you wait a lot, you're pretty uncomfortable most of the time, and you pay for it. But when you rip your groin open. I'll be damned... An army of people coalesce, put you back together, and prevent you from bleeding to death over the next few days.

That's a win!

Everything seems pretty good now. I'm barely bleeding at all any more. I hope this positive trend continues. If it does, I should be hiking in a few weeks and back on the bike in 6 or so. We'll see though, I've got a long way to go and a broken seat to think pretty hard about.