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[ST] Grace's Really Bad Day [longish]



So here's the long version.

The situation:

Seven of us riding to Porterville from Los Angeles; TonyA (Trophy), JimD
(Superhawk), Frank (CX500!!), Jeniffer (Seca), Steve (her s.o.)(Superhawk),
Grace (my s.o.)(GS500), and me (Sprint ST).

We're taking the back way, and looking forward to our favorite road,
Caliente-Bodfish. Coming over from Bakersfield, we'll take Breckenridge.
The group is splitting up, because Tony is having trouble with the heat, so
he, Jim and Frank go off the front. Jen is having trouble with her Seca, so
she, Steve, Grace and I are lagging. As we turn up onto Breckenridge, Jen
stops, Steve and I stop with her, and Grace stops about 100 yds up the
road. Jen's OK, so off we go. I catch up to Grace, who is riding really
well, I'm thinking as I follow her - she's anticipating the changes in the
road surface (road is quite broken up in places), setting her lines well to
the inside on the blind corners to give the potential oncoming cars room,
etc. etc.

We pass a subdivision behind gates, and head up into the hills. About two
miles later, there's a sharp downhill righthander, followed by an uphill
lefthander. All across the lowest point in the road is silt and gravel, so
I move hard left to ride squarely across it, and as Grace hits it I see her
hands seesaw back and forth, then the rear wheel step out and then out
again. At this point, I decide that she's crashing, and move my attention
_away_ from her, and do a max braking stop (across the gravel...uh,
interesting...), stop and hop off the bike, see her lying face down and
motionless on the road, about 10 - 15 feet from her bike. Gloves are off.
Glance at my watch, it's :28 after.

My helmet is off, and I'm pulling my (digital) phone from my pocket, and
realizing that I have no signal as I dial 911. She's still not moving.

Steve and Jen pull up behind my bike, and I turn to Steve, point and yell
"head down and get an ambulance NOW." He's gone in the proverbial flash.

In Holschen's class (the Field Trauma class we took last year...did I
mention the website at www.insightstraining.com??) he emphasized the
"30-second evaluation", beginning with listening for breathing. I kneel
next to Grace, who is lying on her stomach, hands at her sides, and look
into her helmet. The face shield has popped off and is gone. Her sunglasses
are down, covering her upper lip, and she is bleeding from the mouth. I
can't hear any breath. Oh, my earplugs are still in. Out they come, and I
her a sibilant "Sssssh...Sssssh...Sssssh". OK, she's breathing. I'm yelling
her name into her helmet and getting no response.

I run my hands over her arms and legs, through the Aerostich, and find
nothing obviously wrong. I take off her right glove and run my finger over
her palm, looking for a hand twitch. Nothing. I take out my pocketknife,
and poke her hand. Nothing.

At this point, a pickup truck comes down the road and stops. The driver
hands up his cell phone, which does have signal, and I hand it to Jen to
call 911, as Miguel (the driver of the truck) gets out to try and help.

I check her back and neck, but can't feel anything through the Bohn back
protector. I check her breathing again, and as I'm listening, her breathing
changes to a kind of soft snore "Zzzzyxxx.... Zzzzyxxx.... Zzzzyxxx....
Zzzzyxxx...." This isn't good. A moment later, her breathing becomes a kind
of irregular "Zzzzyxxx .... [pause] .... Zzzzyxxx  Zzzzyxxx .... [pause]
.... Zzzzyxxx ....", and I decide that this isn't fucking good at all and
we're potentially in serious trouble. Jen is talking to the 911 operator,
giving (and re-giving, and re-giving) our location and asks "Is she
breathing alright?" I reply "She is breathing irregularly, and can you come
down here and help me do a log roll, please?"

I cut the straps to her Camelbak, and pull it off.

Jen goes back to the 911 operator, as I ask her again in my polite
emergency-air-traffic-controller voice to come down and help. She is still
talking to the operator, and now she's giving demographics: "She's a
40-year old woman", she says. I move to "Get the f^&k over here and help me
roll her!!" Jen says "Wait, they want me to talk to them..." Apparently the
911 operator is telling her to "ignore the screaming guy and talk to us". I
get up, walk over to her, take the phone from her hand and toss it into the
truck. She follows me.

I take Grace's head, Miguel takes her shoulders, Jen takes the hips and
legs and we do a really good log roll. (several people roll the injured as
a unit to make sure the spine isn't twisted). She's on her back, and I
kneel over her chest to take her helmet off. It's now about :31 after.

We practiced this extensively in the first-aid class, and were warned that
we'd better have a good reason for doing it. At this point I've made the
call that the changes (generally downward) in Grace's breathing mean I'd
better be ready to assist. I check her breathing one more time, and it's
still the irregular snore... 

Kneeling over her chest, I slip my hands up behind her ears and put my
fingers on the back of her head holding it steady. Jen pulls the helmet
off, and as she does, Grace winces, and moves her hand up to her face. My
mood improves measurably...she's able to react with some level of motor
control. 

I open up her Stich, take off her gloves and boots and check her out. Arms
and legs OK, she can wiggle all her fingers and toes on command, respond to
touch, her belly is relaxed. So there are no obvious injuries, except her
left hand is swelling, and she winces noticeably when I touch it. At this
point her eyes are open and she's trying to look around and get up. I start
talking to her, and she begins to reply semicoherently. She knows her name,
and at one point thinks we are above Malibu and it's a Thursday (we're
above Bakersfield and it's a Friday). Another time, she's convinced it's
Saturday.

Miguel stands holding his jacket to shade her, I move her Camelback under
her head, get her to stop moving her head, and cover her legs with the
windbreaker from my top box.

Holschen gave us the shopping list for God's Own First Aid Kit, which I
pulled off my bike as I got off (I have gloves, a CPR mask and two battle
dressings in the thigh pocket of my Stich but there _lots_ more in the
bag). I pull out the instant cold pack, break it open, and put it on her
injured hand. She's asking for water, which she shouldn't have (who knows
what they'll do in the hospital), so I wet a gauze bandage and put it in
her mouth.

About :44 after, a CHP shows up and he begins to do all over what we've
been doing for the last fifteen minutes or so. About three minutes later, a
firetruck and ambulance show up and lots of people are sitting around Grace
doing stuff. Steve pulls me over, makes me sit down and Jen gives me some
water. I can make buzzing noises, but that's about it as far as my
functionality is concerned.

I look around and decide to ride in the ambulance with Grace, rather than
follow on my bike. I ask the CHP to have the towtruck take my bike as well
as Grace's, and ask Steve and Jen to package up all my stuff as best they
can, but not to get too stressed about it. As far as I'm concerned, at this
point I'm willing to just lose it all.

The ambulance ride down is uneventful, and when we get to Kern Medical
Center, the care was .. casual. All turned out well, but I'm composing a
nastygram to the medical director.

The high point was her screaming at the docs as they cut the otherwise
intact Stich off her so they could check her out without pulling her off
the backboard. I told them to go ahead and just do it, and she felt
otherwise. She was tied down, I wasn't...

That's the longish version. She went to work today, and other than the mild
headache, swollen hand, and black eye, seems as good as new. I've aged
about fifty years and jump at the slightest sound.

Editorially and in retrospect, I have to state that my intervention
probably made little difference in this case, and she could have laid as
she fell until the ambulance showed up and probably been just as OK. But it
might not have been that way...

I NEVER EVER want to go through this again. Period. So we'll be doing a lot
of talking in the next week or so.


A very relieved and lucky MarcD...


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