These
days it is very common for cyclists to buy a helmet costing $100 or more.
The good news is that many reputable helmet manufacturers will replace your
helmet for free after a crash to promote cycling safety and avoid liability
for a helmet that has ceased to work. |
What to Do After You Crash
Check
Out Your Body
Crashes can involve blunt impact, sliding impact with friction or both. With blunt impact, depending on the force of the crash, you can expect bruises or fractures. Fractures to the collarbone, ribs and hip are common. Fractures are not always obvious. Anytime you have significant and persistent pain or swelling, inability to move a body part normally or purplish discoloration from lots of blood at the impact site, you should consider the possibility of fracture and get an x-ray promptly.
Delay in treating fractures is associated with abnormal healing and poor outcome. For simple bruises apply ice and take a non-aspirin pain reliever like Tylenol. Avoid aspirin since it decreases blood coagulation and increases bleeding. When a cyclist gets car doored or hits the side of a car that cuts him off, he will fly over the car and hit the street. In this situation the most common bony injury is a collarbone fracture. To ensure proper healing, it is necessary to get the collarbone x-rayed immediately and then promptly evaluated by an orthopedic surgeon. Any time a cyclist flies over the handlebars there is a potential for facial injuries including broken nose, chipped or loosened teeth, fractured jaw or dislocated jaw. Dental injuries should be thoroughly checked out by a dentist who can refer you to other specialists such as periodontists and oral surgeons. When a cyclist is hit by a car and propelled through the air, it is common for the body to twist in the air and land in non-anatomical positions that cause strain or sprain injuries to the muscles. Symptoms of such injuries may take days to show up, since the cyclist is resting, taking pain medication and refraining from normal activities for some period of time. After a crash its always a good idea to give your body a time out, and take time to listen to what your body tells you. This means taking a break from stretching routines as well. Attempting to stretch a badly bruised muscle not only hurts but can tear damages muscle fibers that need rest.
With a skidding impact, check for road rash, cleanse the wounds with warm water and soap and look for debris that can cause infection or impede healing. After the wound dries, it helps to use an antibiotic ointment to speed healing. Sometimes a skidding impact will tear flesh from your fingers, hands, arms or legs. After the wound is cleansed if there is a large flap of displaced skin or the damaged skin is very mangled and irregular, it’s a good idea to go the ER and ask about stitches which make a huge difference in wound outcome. Failure to get stitches promptly after a bad laceration can result in permanent scarring. The problem of wound infection should never be ignored or underestimated. If your road rash wound keeps hurting, is not scabbing up, scabbing with bizarre colors or gives off smelly pus, then a trip to the doctor is in order. Although a dermatologist would be best, some insurance plans make that difficult, and a family doctor should be fine.
Two areas of special concern are intra-abdominal injury and head injury. If you have acute pain in or around your belly or your flank associated with impact from your own handlebar, then get to an Emergency Room for an examination right away. This scenario creates the potential for a ruptured, bleeding organ. While some helmeted cyclists have struck their head, had seconds worth of dizziness or dazing and then gone about their way with no future consequences, it is important to note that persistent disruption of normal consciousness beyond 15 minutes is a source for concern and the person should go to the ER for examination. Disruption of normal consciousness means any of the following: severe headache, dazing, confusion, poor memory, slurred speech, difficulty finding words to form sentences, repetition of words or phrases, imbalance, incoordination, ringing in the ears, visual irregularities such as floaters or holes, nausea with or without vomiting or extreme fatigue. All of these symptoms are consistent with concussive trauma to the brain or worse. Severe headache with pupillary disturbance or nausea and vomiting is a sign of skull fracture and brain bleeding.
Report Your Crash to the Police, Even Solo Crashes
Whether your crash involves contact with another vehicle or is caused by a street defect like a pothole, ridge or longitudinal crack in the pavement, you should report it right away to the police and have a report made. This is essential for officially documenting when, where and how your injury occurred and protecting your right to compenation from the insurance company for the party at fault, or from your own insurance company in a hit and run. Another reason to report is that it puts the city, country or other government entity resonsibile for road maintenance on notice that there is a dangerous defect in the street pavement that has caused injury to a bicyclist. This should motivate them to get the defect marked immediately and repaired as soon as practicable. If the public entity ignores your report it acts at its own peril, since the next time someone gets hurt in the same place they can find your report and use it to prove the city was on notice. Last, but not least, prompt and accurate reporting of all bicycle injuries will improve bicycle safety, because it will show the true nature and extent of the incidence of bike injury, its causes and the need to act to prevent new injuries.
The federal government has reported the following:
Summary:
"The literature review has included a broad range of studies carried out
in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany.
Although the varying methodologies, data sources, reporting requirements, and
traffic environments make it difficult to draw consensus from the studies, the
following summary statements are offered: Official motor vehicle crash statistics
have been shown to significantly underestimate the numbers of injured pedestrians
and bicyclists. Between 60 and 75 percent of hospitalized victims of pedestrian-
and bicycle-motor vehicle crashes were identified in official motor vehicle crash
files. For patients receiving only emergency department treatment, the reported
percentages ranged from 50-60 percent. Reported ratios of police-reported to hospital-reported
injury cases ranged from .50 to .78 for pedestrians and from .20 to .82 for bicyclists.
These ratios dropped when emergency department cases were included in the database."
What this means, in plain english, is that bike accidents are grossly underreported, so public officials in charge of traffic engineering and spending money on accident prevention do not know the full extent of the problem. By reporting every bike injury accident you will correct this situation.
Checking Out Your Bike
Whether your bike is aluminum, steel, titanium, carbon or some combination, it is always a good idea to bring it your bike shop to have the mechanic inspect it carefully for cracks in the frame and other types of subtle damage that could make the bike dangerous to ride. Carbon fiber bikes are unique, because in a crash carbon fiber tends to break rather than bend, bulge or deform. Subtle or invisible breaks in the carbon fibers of the forks, handlebars or stems can cause catastrophic failure while you are out riding. Trek has a limited lifetime warranty and crash replacement policy for their OCLV carbon bicycles that began in 1992. You can call Trek at 1-800-373-4594 to learn more. If you crash one of their bikes, bring it to your dealer and ask him to help you send it to Trek for inspection and replacement of the damaged frame or component. Remember that not all hazardous cracks in carbon fiber bikes will reveal themselves by odd noises, degradation in bike handling or by visible fracture lines before the part fails. Always bring your carbon fiber bike to your dealer for inspection after you crash. It could save your life or at least prevent injury.
What About Your Helmet?
Helmets are like Kleenex. Use them once and they are no good. Even if your helmet has no visible cracks, once you slam your helmet against the street or ground it is a safe bet that many of the microbubbles in the Styrofoam shell have collapsed and the helmet’s ability to slow the deceleration of your head in your next crash will have been compromised. These days it is very common for cyclists to buy a helmet costing $100 or more. Few of us are rich enough to replace helmets as easily as we do Kleenex. The good news is that many reputable helmet manufacturers will replace your helmet for free after a crash to promote cycling safety and avoid liability for a helmet that has ceased to work. One example is Giro. You should always check with the store that sold you your helmet to see what can be done. While no manufacturer is going to provide unlimited free replacements, it is always worth asking.