My first recollection as I temporarily regained consciousness was seeing an old St Johns Ambulance man walking round above me, asking my name and if I knew where I was. Looking up from the field stretcher I was strapped to I saw a young girl of maybe twelve years old holding my head to keep my neck still, and as she saw me look at her I’m not sure who was more scared, her or I.
At this point I was lifted off the ground and slid into the back of the 4X4 ambulance. With immense pain to my left shoulder, neck and left pelvis I think I must have drifted into la la land for the trip up the hill. The next thing I remember was speaking to the air ambulance pilot who again asked my name and checked if I knew where I was. When he asked the St Johns guys what I happened I remember them saying, “He doesn’t know, he can’t remember a thing about it, but according to some spectators he winged a tree on the middle section of the Downhill course at 20-30mph and was thrown off his bike onto his head!!”. I told the air ambulance guy clearly that although I’d broken my collar bone and maybe done something to my pelvis I wasn’t an intensive care case, so as the road ambulance from Stoke Mandeville Hospital came up the hill to the race venue Car park at Aston Hill with its sirens screaming, the Air ambulance went on its way.
I now had my neck in a brace and kept drifting in and out of consciousness. My main concern was for my bike and to contact the other half (Tracey) who I knew would be travelling up for the BBQ that night. Tracey got to Stoke Mandeville before I did and as they opened the door of the ambulance she remembers seeing the cleats in the bottom of my shoes and then seeing the doctors take extreme care to get me out the vehicle without making my injuries worse. I didn’t realise at the time how concerned the medical staff were about head, neck and back injuries.
I then spent two hours in A&E resus. No queuing, but I was cut out of all my body armour and, much to my embarrassment, my shorts. I was then x-rayed in 6 places (Head, Neck, Pelvis, Ribs, Back, Left leg) and kept in for two days as they continued neural observations and re x-rayed my pelvis since I couldn’t walk.
As I lay in hospital thankful of the painkillers and the fact that I hadn’t broken my neck or back, my biggest challenge was to try and piece together vague snippets of memory from before the crash to try and work out what had gone wrong. I remembered the first half of the run that had ended with such disastrous consequences – I had two runs that Saturday on DH3, in an Aston Hill Series race. The Sunday was scheduled for the first competition on DH4 which I’d ridden for the first time on Friday night and didn’t like or feel confident on its many fast, steep off camber sections with tight switch backs. Therefore my race strategy on Saturday was to give the more favoured (and regularly practiced) DH3 course a good hammering.
My first run had been good enough for 15th in Seniors (out of 55 riders) so I was hoping for less brakes, more commitment and maybe 5-10 seconds faster on my second run. I threw caution to the wind and hardly touched the brakes in the first 400m, continued hammering along faster than I’d ever been down this course, was on the ragged edge totally committed and travelling at speed when I vaguely remember a tree to my right that I was about to clip on the exit of a corner (D’OH¦. this is going to hurt, I remember thinking).
Now two weeks on I still can’t move my shoulder which is in a sling 24-7, can’t walk at any speed or for any distance due to the soft tissue damage in my left hip (still don’t know exactly how I did this bit of damage), and ribs that are tender but not broken. My helmet and shreds of clothing and body armour have been taken away by the dustbin men and I expect to be off work for another few days.
I anticipate 6 weeks until the collar-bone has healed enough to start physio and three months until can start trying to get back to fitness on the bike. I’m hoping not to have a major phobia of travelling through the trees quickly which has been an all time favourite past time for the last 8 years and aim to be racing again at Longmoor army camp just before Christmas.
author: Paul Wells
date: October 2003
photo: riding/images/wells_precrash.jpg
