Keith A
06-29-2010, 10:42 AM
This past weekend was my high school reunion and we went a few days early to help out our parents with some things they needed to do and have a little fun while we were there. So like any mature and responsible adult, this meant bringing out longboards to bomb some of the hills that are in this town :D
My youngest daughter and I headed out early Friday morning (which was the same day as the first event for our reunion) to do some pavement surfing. Everything was going great...we went to the first hill to warm-up, adjust our boards and get used to riding the hills. We moved onto the bigger and longer hill and were enjoying ourselves...except for the walks back up the hill along with the heat and humidity. After several runs, we decided to take some video and this was my first attempt at riding and videoing at the same time. The first run went fine, except my daughter was a little to far in front of me so we tried it again...but this time I started closer to her.
We started down the hill and my distance behind was just right, however she started carving back and forth which meant that I started catching up to her. Then she moved all the way to the left of the road where I was and I had no where to go since the curb was the vertical concrete type...so we went down while riding in the low 20's mph. She was able to run it out a little and then roll, but I went down hard with two boards under my feet and a camera in my hands.
I knew right away from the pain that it wasn't good. I had some pretty good chunks of skin removed from my knees, elbows, and hand...but thankfully, nothing was broken and more importantly, my daughter only had some minor scraps. It was so hard to get down the rest of the hill and drive home, I really thought I was going to pass out several times. I felt really nauseated from the pain and heat, but somehow managed to make it back to my mom's house.
Once we got there, I started cleaning up the wounds which is always such an enjoyable experience :eek: I knew about Tegaderm (http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/SH/SkinHealth/products/catalog/?PC_7_RJH9U5230GE3E02LECFTDQG2O7_nid=8HTM693HKFbeB 385P3RT67gl) and figured this would be the perfect time to try it out. It took some effort to find a store that carried it and the stuff isn't cheap, but I'll never treat serious road rash any other way...this stuff is great. It is breathable and allows the injured areas to stay moist instead of drying up. It is also very flexible which makes it so much more comfortable. It is also waterproof, so you can shower without the wound getting wet.
The only downside to using this is that it doesn't absorb any fluid, so the blood and fluids will seep out the edges and you have to cover this with something that can absorb it. I also discovered today, that riding with this might not be the best idea. In one aspect it worked great since I could comfortably pedal, even though I have a patch of this over my knee. But by the time I got to work, there was a pool of sweat under the Tegaderm patches and I had to drain this out.
I was able to make it to my high school reunion, but I would have preferred to have been laying on the coach whining about my injuries :rolleyes: Here's a picture of my elbow with the Tegarderm -- this was taken on the fourth day from the date of injury.
Unfortunately, I don't have the video from the crash run since our camera was destroyed in the crash :crap:
Finally, I found this website (http://www.bikesportmichigan.com/features/roadrash.shtml) to be very helpful in knowing how to treat the wounds. They use a product called 2nd Skin which seems similar to Tegadarm.
My youngest daughter and I headed out early Friday morning (which was the same day as the first event for our reunion) to do some pavement surfing. Everything was going great...we went to the first hill to warm-up, adjust our boards and get used to riding the hills. We moved onto the bigger and longer hill and were enjoying ourselves...except for the walks back up the hill along with the heat and humidity. After several runs, we decided to take some video and this was my first attempt at riding and videoing at the same time. The first run went fine, except my daughter was a little to far in front of me so we tried it again...but this time I started closer to her.
We started down the hill and my distance behind was just right, however she started carving back and forth which meant that I started catching up to her. Then she moved all the way to the left of the road where I was and I had no where to go since the curb was the vertical concrete type...so we went down while riding in the low 20's mph. She was able to run it out a little and then roll, but I went down hard with two boards under my feet and a camera in my hands.
I knew right away from the pain that it wasn't good. I had some pretty good chunks of skin removed from my knees, elbows, and hand...but thankfully, nothing was broken and more importantly, my daughter only had some minor scraps. It was so hard to get down the rest of the hill and drive home, I really thought I was going to pass out several times. I felt really nauseated from the pain and heat, but somehow managed to make it back to my mom's house.
Once we got there, I started cleaning up the wounds which is always such an enjoyable experience :eek: I knew about Tegaderm (http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/SH/SkinHealth/products/catalog/?PC_7_RJH9U5230GE3E02LECFTDQG2O7_nid=8HTM693HKFbeB 385P3RT67gl) and figured this would be the perfect time to try it out. It took some effort to find a store that carried it and the stuff isn't cheap, but I'll never treat serious road rash any other way...this stuff is great. It is breathable and allows the injured areas to stay moist instead of drying up. It is also very flexible which makes it so much more comfortable. It is also waterproof, so you can shower without the wound getting wet.
The only downside to using this is that it doesn't absorb any fluid, so the blood and fluids will seep out the edges and you have to cover this with something that can absorb it. I also discovered today, that riding with this might not be the best idea. In one aspect it worked great since I could comfortably pedal, even though I have a patch of this over my knee. But by the time I got to work, there was a pool of sweat under the Tegaderm patches and I had to drain this out.
I was able to make it to my high school reunion, but I would have preferred to have been laying on the coach whining about my injuries :rolleyes: Here's a picture of my elbow with the Tegarderm -- this was taken on the fourth day from the date of injury.
Unfortunately, I don't have the video from the crash run since our camera was destroyed in the crash :crap:
Finally, I found this website (http://www.bikesportmichigan.com/features/roadrash.shtml) to be very helpful in knowing how to treat the wounds. They use a product called 2nd Skin which seems similar to Tegadarm.