I just had a wholesome and hearty laugh at the last two sentences. Thank you for that. And sorry for your broken rib. I broke mine the same way but only after being love-tapped by an SUV. I didn’t realize it until the next day.
Semi tangential, but a friend of mine hit a parked car on a bicycle, thought nothing of it went home, ate a pot of paella and then went to sleep.
Woke up in excruciating pain, went to hospital and nearly died.
Turned out he'd perforated his colon extremely badly, and you only find out those sorts of injuries if your digestive system starts operating, pumping your last meal into your body.
They had to remove all the muck out of his body, and then he spent a few months on fluids and losing a lot of weight.
I guess the lesson is, cycling injuries are often the type of body injuries that take some time to identify. Keep an eye out.
Stepdad is a retired firefighter, and has seen some pretty scarring stuff.
One of the stories he shared was that he got to a car crash, woman had been t-boned at about 30MPH but was fully alert, able to move extremities, and according to stepdad, seemed like a bumps and bruises case.
They still load her up to take her to the hospital and a few minutes into the ambulance ride her vitals spike and she’s dead within a few minutes before they make it to the ER.
Turns out a broken rib had split open one of her organs but nobody had the slightest clue until it was too late (although it didn’t seem like there was much they could have done anyways).
It doesn’t always take much. I know someone elderly who survived tearing off their hepatic artery after falling. It turns out you don’t need it, so if you survive the blood loss you’ll be fine. The big pot belly from the blood takes some time to resolve.
