The importance of wearing your helmet!

[megah0]

Had a bit of a spill this morning out on the bike, going too fast and my wheels clipped the verge and slid away as it had been raining all night, very slippery.

I don't remember falling or landing, sweet unconciousness for me, came to on my back, blood gushing down my chin and in my eyes.

Managed to get to my feet and a passing motorist stayed with me until a relative collected me and took me to A&E.

Mum had her camera in her car. This is what I looked like after Triage, have had my face washed in triage, it was something of a mask of blood. My nose is broken if you are wondering about the state of it.



20p sized chin wound post cleaning



me after having the wound glued back together and steri-stripped, taken before my entire nose was sprayed with iodine though.



I also sustained a suspected fracture of the Scaphoid bone in my wrist so have a cast on my left arm as well.

Finally the reason for this post!

My helmet from the side



and the front.





Without my helmet it could have been SO much worse my injuries to the head are fairly tame considering the speed I was going (well over 20mph) and the uneven asphalt surface I landed on.

I won't ever go out on my bike without after this.

[kempez]

Pics are dead for me

Sounds bad though. Helmets are essential if you clipping along like that

[megah0]

pics fixed, thanks Rysman!

[Russ]

i was riding around local forest this morning, and feet slipped off pedals, front tyre found a ditch and i went over handle bars, i saw a log coming towards me and got my hands up to protect my good lucks, but missed it by about 12 inches thank god. you look a right state mate

[megah0]

I was lucky! Went back to the scene as I lost my glasses, there is a big mark on the verge where the tyres bit in and slipped then a good 7-8ft before the first blood pools occur. Without the helmet those inch deep dents in the brim would have been in my forehead

The bike escaped with light scratches and a displaced chain, good job really as it was my dads £1200 Moulton, managed to avoid getting blood on his premium leather saddle though.

More amusingly I got a new job on sat, start a next monday, going to make an excellent impression on my first day!

[steve threlfall]

Ouch, looking quite battered mate

Good job you were wearing a helmet

[5lab]

ahh the joys of being an experianced biker- you really know how to fall off and its rare for your face to get a pounding at all

that said, nearest i can come is http://www.5lab.co.uk/pics/ouch/ (dont open if squeamish) - you cant always avoid faceplanting - particularly if said object is coming towards you at 30mph

[0iD]

Ouch! you guys.... Worst spill i had was where some scrotes had put a log across the path & it was pitch black. I was familiar with it so I was going full pelt & when I hit it sent me sailing tho the air & headfirst into a pile of builders debris. When I took my helmet off I had a 10mm deep indentation in the forehead of the lid from the corner of a brick that was sticking out of the pile. Swear that lid saved my life!

[Tumble]

Hate to jump on the bandwagon, BUT I'm gonna do it anyway.... long and short, going over some roots, slipped, went 20 ft down a bank over the bars, bike follows me and basically runs me over... gather myself together at the bottom, look at helmet, 2 deep-ish grooves cut in the visor and front of lid where the chainrings decided to take a trip across me face as I was flying through the air upside down... methinks it would have been much much nastier had I not been wearing it...

[UKMuFFiN]

nice wounds mate. you should send them into mountain bike rider magazine - old blokes who should know better

some real pretty pics on there lol. my aim is to get on there one day

[Mullet]

nasty.

had a nasty bang 16yrs ago....broke my neck in a prang with a car...i did not have a helmet on....whilst weraring a helmet would have reduced my headwound it would not have prevented me form breaking my neck... though...on the basis of my head injury alone I would ALWAYS wear a lid.

My head injury was appaling....from my face (just near my ear) to the crown of my head...large gash and my scalp was effectively hanging over my ear....not nice....LIDS ARE A MUST!!

[megah0]

10 days later and the chin wound has healed, better still its just under my chin, out of sight for the most part.

Nose is cocked over to one side slightly and my jaw is still knackered, seeing the Max Fax people at the hospital again on tuesday though. Turns out my wrist wasn't fractured and they just plastered it as a precaution.

They wouldn't let me have my head xrays though

[Tumble]

they're gits aren't they? The doc wouldn't let me have my thumb X-rays when I snapped that, even though he did the whistling through his teeth bit and mentioned that in all his years of being a doctor he hadn't seen anyone manage to snap their thumb so inventively....

[kebabonchip]

I've recently taken up cycling to work and am loving it. I always wear a helmet and the experiences here are certainly a good reminder as to why they are necessary.

Last summer, my we nephew who was 8 at the time fell of his bike into a fence. His helmet got stuck to the fence. It turned out that there was a large nail sticking out from the fence that had pierced his helmet. Thankfully he escaped without injury, without a helmet it would have been so much worse ...

[magicrichard]

I bizarrely wear a helmet when i'm going off-road, but never when I cycle to work ON ROAD.

With any sort of logic this ought to be the other way round I suppose?