WA to MT Day 7 - Beauty until the Crash
I am posting this two days late because I just got out of the hospital. However, before I get into the details of my crash, I would like to focus on the positives.
Our ride on Sunday was planned for 97.5 miles leaving Sandpoint ID and biking to Libby MT. We started out of town on a bike path.
We then biked along the top of Lake Pend Oreille. Here is a photo of the end of one of the coal trains that routinely passed through Sandpoint headed to the coast.
We were generally able to stay off the main roads which led to pleasant biking.
We crossed the Clark Fork shown below and turned East towards Montana.
Here is one of the last photos I took in Idaho.
As we approached the Montana State line, Jesse and I decided to race which we have often done at town, county and state lines in the past. He was initially ahead of me by a reasonable margin based on where we were riding, but Jesse is the far better climber and I the better sprinter. I passed him on his left with perhaps 20 yards to go. After crossing into Montana, I started to slow down and turn somewhat to my left not realizing that Jesse had maintained his speed and had shifted from my right to pass on my left. Unfortunately, the exact timing of things meant that we collided, While Jesse insists he should have said "Passing on your left", the fact is that I did not maintain my line and therefore have primary responsibility for our accident.
The crash was bad since we were still traveling quite fast. Jesse's bike flipped over and he hit the back of his helmet very hard on the pavement. The back of Jesse's helmet properly absorbed the blow and was essentially crushed and shattered as a result. Despite this, Jesse was knocked unconscious. Jumping ahead, after x-rays and a cat scan at the hospital, Jesse was released the same day. He and Ruth then headed to Spokane where they stayed overnight before heading home yesterday. Fortunately, despite a significant concussion, Jesse appears to be recovering very well. He is sore from the crash and still has a bit of a headache. As with any brain injury, we will all be hoping that he does not develop any longer term symptoms, but at this point everything is going well.
When I crashed, my left foot hit the ground in a way that it could not tolerate. Both bones in my left leg snapped just above the ankle. Given the position of my foot, there was no ambiguity that it was severely broken. Remarkably, the only other injury I had was a very slight bit of road rash on my left elbow. Cell phone coverage is sketchy in many places including where we crashed. For this reason, on trips like this I carry a subscription satellite tracker and messenger. I used the SOS feature which triggered an immediate emergency response. Additionally, one of the bikers was able to get one bar of signal and called 911. A first deputy arrived in about 15 minutes and an ambulance 15 or 20 minutes later.
Ruth, besides being married to Jesse, is a critical care nurse. She initially focused on Jesse since his concussion was the most dangerous immediate injury, and I told her I was fine except for the broken leg. Once Jesse had been secured to a back board to protect against neck and spine injuries and loaded into the ambulance, she came over to help me. As a critical care nurse, Ruth has much more medical training than the rural ambulance volunteers. Ruth was the one that carefully air splinted my leg for the 30-40 minute ride to the nearest hospital back in Sandpoint Idaho. She then rode in the ambulance with us doing the medical charting and documentation for our injuries.
My care at the Sandpoint hospital over the past two days was terrific. I will talk about it in my next post.