Thinking of changing my name to Mrs ER

[sundial]

Hi Mrs ER!

I think you made the right decision by not going...men are like elephants...they like to crawl off and die alone

LOL! My husband had his ankle blown in martial arts by someone using poor technique. He also fractured a rib and told me not to worry, he'll make it home.

[smurfalicious]

Well, you may have the ER frequency down, but I think my mom has you beat for damage done. She's cut her fingers off and nearly off on the table saw, twice. The first time I was living with her and her GF started screaming at me to come downstairs. It was before she built the shop and was working in the garage. Bloody ickiness from the garage to the kitchen. Hello, there's a bathroom just inside the hall.

Second time she didn't even realize she did it until she brought her hand back and saw the blood. She walked in the house, took some pain killers, iced and wrapped it and then - DROVE HERSELF like it was no big deal to the ER. Everyone was baffled that she was so calm about it. She just laughed and said she had experience.

[mimitabby]

He doesn't sound fragile to me, he sounds a bit reckless. I'm surprised he went to ER for a rib, they can't do anything about it anyway; except x ray it and say "yep, it's broke"
People who take more chances hurt themselves more often.
I can't IMAGINE not slowing down after 2 collarbone fractures though!!!

[singletrackmind]

I can't IMAGINE not slowing down after 2 collarbone fractures though!!!

I can!

[Skierchickie]

Well, this time he was barely moving, if at all. He toppled over when he couldn't unclip. Overall, he never moves as fast as he did back in the collarbone days (that was almost 20 years ago). He's more likely to go out and do some gruelling event he is far too undertrained for (e.g. last weekend he did a 1/2 ironman - he's barely run this season, and has swum, oh, maybe 4 times so far). He does take more chances than I do, but he isn't going off jumps or anything. However, he does like it when he hits 52mph on a particular hill on his road bike. I'm not sure I could handle 52 - not unless I knew there was a perfectly smooth, straight runout (which that hill does NOT have). 45 seems like enough (I may have hit 47 once, I don't recall).

He did learn from one of the collarbones I think - the first one was in a road race - somebody crashed in front of him. The second one was the funny one. He was riding with a friend, and they always sprinted for city limit signs. He'd discovered this really cool way of accelerating, which involved yanking up on one pedal at the same time as jumping on the other. As it happens, if you get really good at this technique, you can actually lift your rear wheel off the pavement while already going 20 or so. I wasn't there, but apparently it's a really good way to ensure that you slam into the pavement at some point soon after.

Smurf - your Mom!
Singletrackmind - sounds like you speak from experience?!
Mimi - that's pretty much what I said, about the ER, but he thought he should have it checked out. They didn't find anything on the x-ray, so they think it's a hairline fracture. Still hurts like heck.

[silver]

I'm not saying that it's always necessary, but a reason to go to the hospital with a potential broken rib is that there could be a lung injury caused by a broken rib. A lung injury could lead to a collapsed lung which would need to be monitored. The lung injury shows up on the x-ray. Or at least this was my experience.

[sundial]

Hi Silver, I miss your posts.