You can all relax, the bike is ok.

I have never been a superstitious person and approached Friday the 13^th as just another day.  Maybe there is something in this Friday the 13^th business because it just so happened that I had what is easily the worst accident of my life on Friday 13^th February 2009.  Before that fateful date I had somehow managed to stay broken bone free, but I sure changed that fact when I did a good number on my wrist, breaking it in four places.

The first time I realised I had crashed and all was not right was the moment it dawned on me that I was sliding down the track, my left arm stuck under my body, waiting for my momentum to grind itself to a halt, wondering what damage I had done to myself.  It was just another early morning ride to work, something that was becoming a healthy habit, along a track I had ridden before without incident.  It was still a little dark, the sun just coming up over the hills, what a beautiful time of the day to be riding, most people still snuggled up in bed.  As I headed down the track a rounded a corner, failing to see a big rock lying loosely in the middle of the track I hit it at full speed the impact twisting my front wheel sideways and throwing me splat onto the ground, sliding, sliding and sliding to a stop.  I’m not total sure how my wrist was broken, well more liked smashed, but I believe it happened as a result of my left arm being stuck under my body as I slid and bounced down the track and it maybe got a helping hand from my Garmin Forerunner 305 that I found lying on the ground.

After coming to a stop I checked myself over and didn’t quiet look right and wasn’t working at all, just hanging there like a bracelet. Not good looks like it was hospital time for me and I couldn’t just lay there I needed to get my bike home and off to hospital before the pain set in.  So I picked it up with my one good hand left and trundled the couple of km’s home, all the way wondering how was I going to get myself to Hospital it was still well before 7am and Laura was away on holidays.  It was time to put those one handed eat a Big Mc while driving skills to use so I jumped in Laura’s Magna and stick shifted myself to the emergency department at Canberra Hospital.

Life is always trying to teach me something and this time it was about the illusion of control.  I think for must of us, we fool ourselves into thinking that we are in complete control of our destinies because the alternative is to scary. The alternative being that life is a mystery and largely unpredictable, out of our control. It is this truth that has cemented itself as a result of my crash. Why? Because I wasn’t doing anything stupid or unsafe, it just happened. Sometimes things just happen. Sure if I had gone a different way to work I wouldn’t have broken my wrist, but I didn’t.  It just happened.

To be continued…