It is amazing how little you feel immediately after an accident. Mine wasn't so death-defying, but I did shatter my shoulder in a bicycle accident, and called a friend to come get me and drive me and my bike home. I did not realize I was hurt until he got there, and could not stand up or move the left half of my body. Then we decided to go to the hospital instead of my home. But for about the first 10 minutes, I thought I just was just scraped up a bit...
Back in high school, my ear got cut nearly in half in a car accident. I didn't feel a thing until the paramedic jammed and taped a styrofoam restraint against my ear as a precaution for neck injuries. Apparently, the full range of pain free neck motion vs the gouts of blood gushing from my ear wasn't convincing enough.
I didn't break anything, but I'm amazed that I didn't when I had a bicycle accident several years back.
I was doing something real stupid - mid 30's, showing off to my wife, on a bike with Amerityres; I had just gotten those tires installed. They're great tires - solid tires, but feel like they are aired up. Well worth the price.
What I wasn't told was that you shouldn't do any kind of "jumps" with your bike...
So there I am showing off, and I decide to ramp off this one section of sidewalk (that actually made a good ramp). I landed, and that's when things went to hell.
Ya see, Amerityres don't deform like a regular tire does. Instead - they come off the rim. I went a$$-over-teakettle.
To this day I don't know all what or how I landed, but I do know my knee took the brunt for some reason. I came within inches of slamming my head into a concrete block retaining wall for the raised bed of the neighbor's lawn that was next to the sidewalk. The bike was totally mangled. My wife was horrified.
Now - I knew I had taken a good spill, but I thought "well, dust yerself off, laugh about it" - which I did. I told her I was fine, go home and grab my pickup so I can get home. As she biked off, I decided I would get up, and walk the bike home. I slung it up on my shoulder, and started to walk (note, this was a cheap walmart bike, and weighed a bit). Everything seemed ok. She eventually got to me, I put the bike in the back, then slumped in the passenger seat. We went home, then went inside.
We started to discuss what we were going to have for dinner (KFC, if I remember right), when I looked down at my knee...
...it was swollen to the size of softball! It didn't really feel that good, and I could barely walk on it.
We went to urgent care that night. They xray'd me and told me nothing was broken. Gave me a script for vicodin (yay), wrapped up my knee, and gave me a crutch. I hobbled around for a few weeks, and eventually all was better, with no problems in the leg since.
But in the immediate aftermath of the crash, I had no idea just how bad I was injured, nor the amount of pain I would feel. I was just walking along, carrying my bike on my shoulder, like no big deal.
I guess a lot of accidents are like that, if serious enough; probably some kind of survival holdover tactic to allow you to "get away" and to safety after an injury (or worse) a predator attack.
3 mins after, a ski medic was shuffling pieces of bone around in my shoulder and saying "i think its dislocated" all without any pain but feeling very badly winded. Adrenaline is impressive. Morphine is the best
