[waterdogs]

This isn't a post for sympathy in the slightest, more a plee from my personal experience such that the same doesn't happen to you or your buddies. I feel I now have a obligation to spread the word, as we should learn something from every experience.

This past Saturday @ Snowshoe, over the last rock in the woods on the race course just before the lift I made a mistake and went over the bars. I've done that feature many times before without incident and I don't remember what I did wrong.

I landed on my head and it hurt like hell. Lesson #1 to other riders, if you or your buddies have any instant numbness anywhere, DO NOT GET UP and DO NOT MOVE. Let the medics board you and take you away. This lesson came from a Neurologist at WVU. I instantly had and still have numbness in my thumb, index finger, and birdie finger. This is a sign that something isn't right with your nerves and could be a sign of something far worse. I was told I made the mistake of getting up and walking down the remainder of the trail and was lucky that I didn't fall down at any point during that short walk.

I fractured my C6 and C7 vertebrae. I was VERY lucky (per the Docs) that I am not paralyzed.

Lesson #2 and the reason for this post. I do have and was not wearing my Leatt when this happened. PLEASE GUYS, I know that I don't know each of you personally, but please buy and please wear a Leatt or something similar. My experience is proof that anything can happen on the smallest of features on the trail. The cost and discomfort is so minor compared to the alternative.

Thanks for the opp to share my experience.

Jay

BTW, I was planning on going to the Nats Qual this weekend with my camera, but I won't be able to attend. Good luck to each of you and I want to see pics where each rider is wearing the proper protection devices!

 

[profro]

Sorry to hear. Hope things get better.

 

[bizutch]

Hate to hear that. My C3 looks like that thing on Charlie Brown's sweater from landing on my skull as a kid. It was a compaction fracture that apparently our ghetto hospital never found despite all sorts of scans & dye.

Hope you heal up quick brother!

 

[FCLinder]

Jay, we are there for your Bro!!!! Just let us know....

Cecil

 

[motobutane]

Hope you heal quick Jay and then you can come ride Windrock and really get hurt

 

[caleb]

man that is so scary to hear. I am very glad to hear that you are not fully paralyzed. My mom is a nurse so the second i told her about leatt braces she put the money down to order it. I have hit very many trees with my head and it has saved me many times. I sure hope that you get back to the best of abilitys you can!

 

[milohead]

Rode Wilson's today w/ t-ric and borrowed his Leatte. Wasn't uncomfortable just could tell it was there. Been on the fence about getting one but your right there is no reason folks shouldn't wear it. Happy healing ma, glad you can still walk.

 

[jekyll991]

Hope everything heals up well.

I too had an experience on my that made me glad I bought my Astars brace. I posted about it in the neck brace thread but might I'll say it again.

Basically I came over a ~40mph double (I know this because I had my gopro on in practice and I could see my speedometer) that the geniuses who run the place decided to water the face of. My bike lost traction and went completely sideways, wasn't able to correct it in the air, landed sideways and got tossed headfirst into the ground.

It knocked the breath out of me, and I destroyed my knee against my radiator shroud (hard enough so that my plastic now has a dent in it), but other than that I was fine. My lower back started hurting for a few weeks afterword but nothing in my neck at all, and definitely no numbness or tingling.

I checked over my helmet and it didn't appear to be cracked so despite my better judgement I continued wearing it, about three weeks later I pretty much fell over in a turn after sliding for 10 feet and gently knocked my head on the ground. The next I was cleaning my helmet up and notice this nice little cracks:

The majority of the cracks are around where your goggle strap goes, so it's easy to see the force between my neck brace and the ground pancaked my helmet and it took a light hit to bring those fractures to full-blown cracks.

 

[waterdogs]

Thanks for the well wishes guys, but please remember this thread should be about you all. We should learn from each other mistakes to make a best effort to prevent the same from happening to others. That includes you too Cecil, the team needs to all wear the proper protection.

Not pimping a specific shop, but if anyone needs a local SC shop to get a Leatt, please feel free to contact rocketmatt17 or matt@billygoatbikes.com

@ Jekyll, sounds nasty and glad you were not seriously injured!

 

[FCLinder]

Thanks for the well wishes guys, but please remember this thread should be about you all. We should learn from each other mistakes to make a best effort to prevent the same from happening to others. That includes you too Cecil, the team needs to all wear the proper protection.

Not pimping a specific shop, but if anyone needs a local SC shop to get a Leatt, please feel free to contact rocketmatt17 or matt@billygoatbikes.com

@ Jekyll, sounds nasty and glad you were not seriously injured!

Thanks for thinking of me! Will be getting one in 2 weeks.

Cecil

 

[dragontalesdh]

This isn't a post for sympathy in the slightest, more a plee from my personal experience such that the same doesn't happen to you or your buddies. I feel I now have a obligation to spread the word, as we should learn something from every experience.

This past Saturday @ Snowshoe, over the last rock in the woods on the race course just before the lift I made a mistake and went over the bars. I've done that feature many times before without incident and I don't remember what I did wrong.

I landed on my head and it hurt like hell. Lesson #1 to other riders, if you or your buddies have any instant numbness anywhere, DO NOT GET UP and DO NOT MOVE. Let the medics board you and take you away. This lesson came from a Neurologist at WVU. I instantly had and still have numbness in my thumb, index finger, and birdie finger. This is a sign that something isn't right with your nerves and could be a sign of something far worse. I was told I made the mistake of getting up and walking down the remainder of the trail and was lucky that I didn't fall down at any point during that short walk.

I fractured my C6 and C7 vertebrae. I was VERY lucky (per the Docs) that I am not paralyzed.

Lesson #2 and the reason for this post. I do have and was not wearing my Leatt when this happened. PLEASE GUYS, I know that I don't know each of you personally, but please buy and please wear a Leatt or something similar. My experience is proof that anything can happen on the smallest of features on the trail. The cost and discomfort is so minor compared to the alternative.

Thanks for the opp to share my experience.

Jay

BTW, I was planning on going to the Nats Qual this weekend with my camera, but I won't be able to attend. Good luck to each of you and I want to see pics where each rider is wearing the proper protection devices!

dude thats scary. i did the exact same thing at the exact same spot at that exact same race. several people told me about another guy who smashed his head there. iv been to the doc several times now trying to straighten my back out,

somehow i managed to evade major major damage. i did fracture my arm but what happened to my neck was several vertebrae were way out of alignment and pointing in odd directions and the curvature of my neck was gone. i had a sever case of whiplash as the doc said tho i didnt get it the way you would normally get it, so it was to the point that if i did it again i might have died.....

long story short. my arm is back working again, the chiropractor has done a lot of work and im still in extreme discomfort all the time in my neck and upper back. and i refuse to ride my bike(even on my own jumpsn at home) without a leatt. i barrowed one from a moto friend for the nats qualifier.

im with you on the plee for all to wear a leatt

 

[manimal]

i'll definitely be getting one for noah once we get settled in Tucson and start hitting up the shuttle runs.
does the Leatt just isolate the impact so that it can't affect the vertebrae?

 

[dragontalesdh]

i'll definitely be getting one for noah once we get settled in Tucson and start hitting up the shuttle runs.
does the Leatt just isolate the impact so that it can't affect the vertebrae?

it restricts certain range of motion so your neck will not hyper extend or compress to the extent of breakage or damage (or at least thats the intent behind it) i wasnt wearing one when i got hurt but iv wrecked since i got one and i can feel it working. always a good thing to have on dh or anything of the sort