Posted by
Michelle on Wednesday, Oct 03, 2007
On Friday afternoon, just south of Pie Town, New Mexico, we were flying down a short hill on packed dirt when I saw Dave have a bit of trouble ahead of me. I saw that it was because of a stretch of sand and tried to get ready by leaning back in order to let the front wheel float over it. But it was too deep and I was going too fast to handle it. My front wheel wheel wiggled and then dug in hard, stopping my bike while I went over the handlebars. I landed full on my shoulder, the wind knocked out of me. In a second the wave of pain hit and I knew there had to be something broken.
Dave turned around as soon as he got through, just in time to see me writhing around on my side, crying in shock and pain. He ran back to me and spoke to me calmly as he felt my head, neck and arms. He kept me focused on finding the problem and making good decisions until I finally calmed down and quit getting mad at myself for doing or not doing the wrong or right thing. He was checking for a dislocated shoulder while I was convinced I’d broken my collar bone. I had a good sized lump on my right shoulder where my collar bone was sticking up, and my shoulder would not hold my arm up. Dave made a sling for me and I sat on the side of the dirt road.
We were out in the middle of the high desert South of Pie Town, a town of about 60 people. Dave said he would give the cell phone a try but I had no confidence it would get a signal. It did! Dave called Nita, the woman who had so graciously put us up at her house the night before (a huge supporter of hikers and bikers on the Continental Divide) but we knew she was headed out of town. He left her a message about our situation. Then we decided to call 411 for the number of the Daily Pie where we had a piece of pie the day before. The woman who answered asked some questions, and after a few minutes Dave gets off the phone saying she and her husband would come get us and take us to the hospital. Just like that we had rescuers on the way.
When they arrived we realized it was the same woman who had been so nice the day before when serving us our pie. Vee and her husband John helped Dave put our bikes and stuff in the back of the truck, then Dave and I climbed in the king cab. We chose to go to the ER in Springerville, AZ since it was back in the direction of Flagstaff. John entertained us with stories of hiking and hunting all over the Southwest and before we knew it we were in Springerville. They got me checked in, then took Dave to get settled in a motel before they left. It was an hour and a half drive and they wouldn’t even let Dave buy gas. Talk about trail angels, this town has them! We are so thankful for the help of Vee and John.
Dave returned to the ER in time to see me drugged up. The x-rays showed I had a slightly dislocated and very separated shoulder and they needed to sedate me so they could put the shoulder back in. There’s nothing they could do about the separation so once I was ready to leave they gave us the x-ray and said to see a doctor in a week.
We spent the night in the motel, and in the morning got ahold of our friend Jay who drove 3 hours from Flagstaff to come pick us up. Monday I saw my orthopedic surgeon who confirmed the separation, saying its mostly a type 5 separation, though it can be reduced (squashed back together to look nearly normal) so he didn’t recommend surgery. He said he is pretty confident I can regain good function through physical therapy, and if it doesn’t perform the way I want it to I can always do surgery later. I was happy with this and feel I can do it. I must keep it in a sling for 3-4 weeks and can then start with basic physical therapy and work up from there.
This is, of course, going to delay our trip to Africa. I imagine it will take 8-12 weeks at least to get my strength to a point where I can manage a loaded bike again. In the mean time I’ll keep posting updates to this blog of my progress as well as tidbits of our research and planning for Africa. Dave also has pictures from New Mexico that he’ll get posted to the gallery soon. And I’ll get faster and more skilled with my left hand. I also need to write and post our last two days before the accident. So stay tuned, this is just an interruption, not the end!