Cycling accident re-run

[Bluesofa]

 

 

Incredibly it appears that some people hadn't heard the original story of my cycling accident back in March.
I've been asked about it a couple of times, so that's enough opportunity for me to bore the pants off you.
It was posted elsewhere at that time, but I'll post it here for those who are a glutton for punishment.
Here goes:

 

 

 

As someone slightly more famous than me once said, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

I have recently been cycling a new route I worked out, a 37km loop which takes me an hour-and-a-half.
So there I was minding my own business about 9 a.m., cycling along an 8km stretch of the Udon-Sakon Nakhon Road (Highway 22)
I was (as always) in the motorbike/cycle lane on the very left side of the road.
It was a nice day, not even anyone driving in that lane in the wrong direction.
Suddenly from behind there was an enormous thump and I found myself flying through the air. I hit the ground further ahead on the cycle lane, landing on my back, staring up at the sky.
It seemed like ages before it dawned on me what had happened, as it was all so fast.
Tilting my head I could see a car stopped ahead of me. There was a woman from the car coming towards me.

She asked me if I was all right. I said no. I attempted to sit up slightly, but my back was really painful, so I lay down again.
The woman asked if I could move my feet. I could. Then she asked could I turn slightly?
I responded by saying that in an accident you are not supposed to move the injured party in case of a spinal injury. I asked her sarcastically if she was a doctor?
She said she was.
Where?
Nong Han Hospital.
The doctor said she just wanted to check my back.
I did try to turn a little, and it was extremely painful.
The doctor called an ambulance. I asked her to call my wife as well, to let her know what happened.
Two police turned up. They asked me about the accident.
I told them I had been hit from behind, and the driver already admitted that she didn’t see me - even though I had a reflective high visibility vest (and as always, my cycle helmet).
While we were waiting for the ambulance, one of the policemen had picked up my glasses off the road and gave them to me. I noticed the lenses were both scratched.
My wife arrived and came to see me. She talked to the doctor and to the police, one of who by coincidence was a relative of my wife.
Even as I was laying there I told my wife to take a photo of the car registration (better to trust no one else and be organised).

The ambulance arrived and I was put on a flat board, which was lifted onto a trolley/gurney.
We went to Udon Thani Hospital. A most painful journey, as the gurney didn’t have any suspension and I was sure the ambulance must have been modified for off-road racing – I could feel every single bump on the road.
 
At hospital I had my back X-rayed and I was told I had fractured my spine and might be in hospital a few weeks. I was transferred to a bed on a ward.
There were 32 beds on the ward. It was a new building, very impressive looking. Perhaps because it was all new, I don’t know.
A couple of hours later another doctor came along. He said the fracture wasn’t too severe and I would probably be there for perhaps three days.
 
Later in the afternoon, I had a visitor: The doctor who had hit me.
She genuinely seemed worried about me, she did cry a little.
As well as bringing me the obligatory food package, she also brought two doctor friends with her from Nong Han Hospital - orthopaedic specialists. They looked at the X-rays and asked me few questions about the pain.
It was then they told me I had also broken my coccyx (tail-bone). They said it would become more painful over the next few days (they were right).

The senior nurse on our ward I thought of as Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). She had a loud voice and appeared to be very unsympathetic to her patients.
She was obviously aware that three doctors from another hospital had descended on the ferang in bed 14. They had told Nurse Ratched how they came to be there.
I overheard Nurse Ratched asking the doctor who had hit me if she had พรบ (insurance) to pay my hospital bill? The doctor told her she had, and would cover everything.
The next daylight the doctor came to see me again. This time she brought her insurance details. I just hope when we get to that point, the insurance claim is sorted without any problems.
I ended up in hospital for three days/two nights.
I have a combined front & back metal brace I need to wear for the next three months. I’ve been told that the first month I need to spend the majority of the time laying down, to allow the fracture to heal.

I have a cycling App on my phone to track my speed and log the route. I’ve had a look at it since and the irony is that in another 200 metres I would have turned off  the main road onto a minor road and wouldn’t have been hit.
Now wouldn’t that have been boring.
 

 

[Yinn]

Unlucky AND lucky story. 

Get well soon Sir.

[billybob]

Very sorry to hear of your troubles. You were cycling on some of the most dangerous roads in the world. Maybe when you get back to good health keep it off road if you can. Thai roads are tragically brutal especially for those on two wheels. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/22/chileans-round-the-world-record-cycling-quest-ends-in-death-on-thai-highway

[Bluesofa]

13 minutes ago, billybob said:

Very sorry to hear of your troubles. You were cycling on some of the most dangerous roads in the world. Maybe when you get back to good health keep it off road if you can. Thai roads are tragically brutal especially for those on two wheels. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/22/chileans-round-the-world-record-cycling-quest-ends-in-death-on-thai-highway

I remember reading some of these reports over the years.
I'm still keen on cycling, I don't know how much more dangerous it is here than elsewhere. I seem to read about deliberately aggressive drivers in the UK harassing cyclists there.
Here it's more lack of attention. Not certain which is worse.

[Bluesofa]

19 minutes ago, yetanother said:

ooh, that brings back memories;

i was being transferred from phitsanulok narae suwaan hospital to sukhothai public (a mistake in hindsight), an hour drive away,with 5 broken ribs and punctured lung ( o the irony, a bicycle accident also);

i wanted my wife to drive me in car ;

"cannot" ( they clearly just wanted the 2000 baht transfer fee);

that ambulance , as you described in your case, had no suspension for that kind of duty; 

every bump was a jolt of pain; wont' forget that ride

You're the first person to mention the ambulance. As you say, with a painful injury you experience the pain to a heightened level with the useless suspension.

Do you want to share the details of your accident at all?

[Stonker]

I cycle a similar distance to you every day, as long as it's not raining or I'm cutting the grass or have some other excuse, but it's all very quiet country side roads and up in the hills - in a couple of hours I'll pass / be passed by maybe a couple of cars, three or four pick ups, and some monks in a golf cart.

I've cycled all over the world, but there's just no way I'd cycle on a main road here.

Commiserations.

[Bluesofa]

7 minutes ago, Stonker said:

I cycle a similar distance to you every day, as long as it's not raining or I'm cutting the grass or have some other excuse, but it's all very quiet country side roads and up in the hills - in a couple of hours I'll pass / be passed by maybe a couple of cars, three or four pick ups, and some monks in a golf cart.

I've cycled all over the world, but there's just no way I'd cycle on a main road here.

Commiserations.

Thanks.
Six months have passed now, and I'm gently getting back into the swing of things.

Talking about 'swing' I'm intrigued about monks in a golf cart. Were they off to play golf, or was it some luxury transport to avoid wearing out the soles of their feet?

[Stonker]

23 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

Thanks.
Six months have passed now, and I'm gently getting back into the swing of things.

Talking about 'swing' I'm intrigued about monks in a golf cart. Were they off to play golf, or was it some luxury transport to avoid wearing out the soles of their feet?

Their temple's a small one by a  cave, so the nearest villages are five to 10 kms away so maybe a 20 km round trip in the hills.

They get dropped off on one side of a village, walk through collecting alms, then picked up on the other side and on to the next village.

One monk, who lives by himself in a hut in the fields, used to walk 15 kms or so every day, but even he was given a shiny new electric three-wheeler.

It's a bit like a 19th century soap with mod-cons!

[Stonker]

One of my cycling trips was to Nepal and Tibet, at the same time that Chris Bonington was there looking for Yetis - we both had to go elsewhere as boulders the size of cars and small sheds were bouncing off the track around us so we went to the Annapurna circuit instead,  but even that was safer than cycling on a main road in Thailand.

[Faraday]

1 hour ago, yetanother said:

tale ended up 23 days in the hosp as they botched the punctured lung, long other story;

What in the hell did they do?

 

[HolyCowCm]

4 hours ago, Bluesofa said:

Incredibly it appears that some people hadn't heard the original story of my cycling accident back in March.
I've been asked about it a couple of times, so that's enough opportunity for me to bore the pants off you.
It was posted elsewhere at that time, but I'll post it here for those who are a glutton for punishment.
Here goes:

As someone slightly more famous than me once said, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

I have recently been cycling a new route I worked out, a 37km loop which takes me an hour-and-a-half.
So there I was minding my own business about 9 a.m., cycling along an 8km stretch of the Udon-Sakon Nakhon Road (Highway 22)
I was (as always) in the motorbike/cycle lane on the very left side of the road.
It was a nice day, not even anyone driving in that lane in the wrong direction.
Suddenly from behind there was an enormous thump and I found myself flying through the air. I hit the ground further ahead on the cycle lane, landing on my back, staring up at the sky.
It seemed like ages before it dawned on me what had happened, as it was all so fast.
Tilting my head I could see a car stopped ahead of me. There was a woman from the car coming towards me.

She asked me if I was all right. I said no. I attempted to sit up slightly, but my back was really painful, so I lay down again.
The woman asked if I could move my feet. I could. Then she asked could I turn slightly?
I responded by saying that in an accident you are not supposed to move the injured party in case of a spinal injury. I asked her sarcastically if she was a doctor?
She said she was.
Where?
Nong Han Hospital.
The doctor said she just wanted to check my back.
I did try to turn a little, and it was extremely painful.
The doctor called an ambulance. I asked her to call my wife as well, to let her know what happened.
Two police turned up. They asked me about the accident.
I told them I had been hit from behind, and the driver already admitted that she didn’t see me - even though I had a reflective high visibility vest (and as always, my cycle helmet).
While we were waiting for the ambulance, one of the policemen had picked up my glasses off the road and gave them to me. I noticed the lenses were both scratched.
My wife arrived and came to see me. She talked to the doctor and to the police, one of who by coincidence was a relative of my wife.
Even as I was laying there I told my wife to take a photo of the car registration (better to trust no one else and be organised).

The ambulance arrived and I was put on a flat board, which was lifted onto a trolley/gurney.
We went to Udon Thani Hospital. A most painful journey, as the gurney didn’t have any suspension and I was sure the ambulance must have been modified for off-road racing – I could feel every single bump on the road.
 
At hospital I had my back X-rayed and I was told I had fractured my spine and might be in hospital a few weeks. I was transferred to a bed on a ward.
There were 32 beds on the ward. It was a new building, very impressive looking. Perhaps because it was all new, I don’t know.
A couple of hours later another doctor came along. He said the fracture wasn’t too severe and I would probably be there for perhaps three days.
 
Later in the afternoon, I had a visitor: The doctor who had hit me.
She genuinely seemed worried about me, she did cry a little.
As well as bringing me the obligatory food package, she also brought two doctor friends with her from Nong Han Hospital - orthopaedic specialists. They looked at the X-rays and asked me few questions about the pain.
It was then they told me I had also broken my coccyx (tail-bone). They said it would become more painful over the next few days (they were right).

The senior nurse on our ward I thought of as Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). She had a loud voice and appeared to be very unsympathetic to her patients.
She was obviously aware that three doctors from another hospital had descended on the ferang in bed 14. They had told Nurse Ratched how they came to be there.
I overheard Nurse Ratched asking the doctor who had hit me if she had พรบ (insurance) to pay my hospital bill? The doctor told her she had, and would cover everything.
The next daylight the doctor came to see me again. This time she brought her insurance details. I just hope when we get to that point, the insurance claim is sorted without any problems.
I ended up in hospital for three days/two nights.
I have a combined front & back metal brace I need to wear for the next three months. I’ve been told that the first month I need to spend the majority of the time laying down, to allow the fracture to heal.

I have a cycling App on my phone to track my speed and log the route. I’ve had a look at it since and the irony is that in another 200 metres I would have turned off  the main road onto a minor road and wouldn’t have been hit.
Now wouldn’t that have been boring.
 

I remember the story and when that happened. Good your ok now and oiling the old joints getting back on the mechanical horse. 

[Convert54]

In my 20's I was hit from behind by a motorcycle. To keep my story very short I and the rider  were both  transported to a hospital A&E Dept . I suffered 3 fractures and forward displacement of my coccyx and abrasions  while the rider who was found to be DUI  suffered a minor skull fracture and concussion from the impact as we both hit the ground. After x-rays  I was  sent home  with a rubber donut cushion . No pain relief offered until I demanded it !. 45 years on I still  do not understand how or why. But at least I survived. Things  happen.

 

[Bob20]

7 hours ago, Bluesofa said:

Incredibly it appears that some people hadn't heard the original story of my cycling accident back in March.
 

Glad you're making progress. Stay off the main roads or at least wrap up well!

[Hamosity]

I was aghast to read of your travails Blue. But pleased to read that six months on there is improvement.

I hope the recovery is a complete one. 
 

Thailand is a beautiful country, but there’s danger in every conveyance out there.  And now they are electrified you don’t even hear them coming!
 

 

[Bluesofa]

10 hours ago, yetanother said:

first off, they used some sort of automated inhaler machine, that had a 'check-out' tag on it and hadnt been used for a couple years;

then i noticed that the hose had a significant hole in it (therefore quite useless) ; tried to communicate all that and got nowhere; (at the time my thai was really basic);

the condition never got better and i was getting worried; then one of the interns ("doctors") tried to operate ;

yes OPERATE on a punctured lung;

it was agony , he had his hand up inside me and it HURT; not enough  anesthetic; i could literally feel him fumbling around , feeling his way, clueless;

i was terrified;

so much so  that they had to abort the operation;

the reason the whole mess dragged on ( i later learned) was that the "doctors" had to drive in from an hour away , and then were swamped,  rotating in and out it lengthened the process;

so it appears everyone got sub-standard care;

my first night in general ward (then moved to private when available) , a guy died a couple beds over, in the morning they had the 'wake' right there in the general ward, didnt take the body out to do that, monks,chanting,etc; 

quite uplifting as to the standards there......;

scared me so bad i got superior health insurance immediately thereafter (still cant take a deep breath tho) in order to go totally private hosps 

That's a frightening story. It makes 'Nurse Ratched' who I encountered, sound like an angel.

It was made more difficult due the the language barrier. Being on a normal ward, (if you have a wife), any visitors would be limited to visiting times and not allowed to stay and help with translation, for example.
In a private room that's another matter.

I'm sure they're are other people with horror stories, although there must be others who have received good care from the same state hospitals.I know Colin Neal is full of praise for it (overall anyway).

How long ago was your accident, and have you now fully recovered?

[gummy]

8 hours ago, Bob20 said:

Glad you're making progress. Stay off the main roads or at least wrap up well!

What's that Frenchman doing there ?

[dj230]

that freaking sucks, but at least on the bright side it could have been worse

 

I've given up motorcycles/motorbikes/bikes on main roads, too dangerous for me.

Not much suspension in Canadian ambulances either, pro tip, ask them for IV hydromorphone/dilaudid once you get in the ambulance, helps a lot

Edited September 19, 2021 by dj230

[Bluesofa]

2 hours ago, dj230 said:

that freaking sucks, but at least on the bright side it could have been worse

I've given up motorcycles/motorbikes/bikes on main roads, too dangerous for me.

Not much suspension in Canadian ambulances either, pro tip, ask them for IV hydromorphone/dilaudid once you get in the ambulance, helps a lot

Thanks for the advice.
The ambulance staff here only really try to get the casualty to hospital alive if possible, not much else.

As soon as you've left the accident scene alive you're also off the traffic accident figures. Massaging the figures is the closet you'll get to massage in hospital here.

[Faraday]

6 hours ago, Bluesofa said:

Thanks for the advice.
The ambulance staff here only really try to get the casualty to hospital alive if possible, not much else.

As soon as you've left the accident scene alive you're also off the traffic accident figures. Massaging the figures is the closet you'll get to massage in hospital here.

Do the Ambulances here carry any emergency equipment?

 

[AussieBob]

17 minutes ago, Faraday said:

Do the Ambulances here carry any emergency equipment?

Ambulances is the wrong word - the vast majority are not Ambulances as we know them in the west. They are staffed by untrained people who pick up injured people (mainly road accidents) and put them in the back of a pickup and take them to the hospital for money. If it is a farang they will try and take them to the nearest expensive private hospital, as they will get more money.  The whole system is incompetent and there are little/no regulations.  Think those tow-truck operators who 'somehow' turn up at accidents quickly and then tow away the car to their 'favourite' repair shop.

[gummy]

20 minutes ago, AussieBob said:

Ambulances is the wrong word - the vast majority are not Ambulances as we know them in the west. They are staffed by untrained people who pick up injured people (mainly road accidents) and put them in the back of a pickup and take them to the hospital for money. If it is a farang they will try and take them to the nearest expensive private hospital, as they will get more money.  The whole system is incompetent and there are little/no regulations.  Think those tow-truck operators who 'somehow' turn up at accidents quickly and then tow away the car to their 'favourite' repair shop.

Generally you are correct but there are exceptions. Back in 2010 I was living in Don Mueang area and one Sunday I was cleaning out around our pond in our garden when suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my finger. Yelled to the wife I had just got bitten and she panicked a bit when I said what the snake appeared to look like but she called the emergency number. So I went inside straight away and googled to find out what to do and which snake. By this time several people arrived to try and find the snake , which they did, and according to my googling I should have been dead !!. Anyway to the point the "ambulance" guys arrived and took me to the nearest Thai hospital which they said specialised in snake bites.  Great guys , great government hospital and amassing staff, so not all ambulances are the same.

[AussieBob]

19 minutes ago, gummy said:

Generally you are correct but there are exceptions. Back in 2010 I was living in Don Mueang area and one Sunday I was cleaning out around our pond in our garden when suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my finger. Yelled to the wife I had just got bitten and she panicked a bit when I said what the snake appeared to look like but she called the emergency number. So I went inside straight away and googled to find out what to do and which snake. By this time several people arrived to try and find the snake , which they did, and according to my googling I should have been dead !!. Anyway to the point the "ambulance" guys arrived and took me to the nearest Thai hospital which they said specialised in snake bites.  Great guys , great government hospital and amassing staff, so not all ambulances are the same.

Yes gummy, there are some good ones - glad you guys got one.  They tend to be associated with the better Govt hospitals and the private hospitals in Bangkok.  When we lived in Chiang Mai I had a wrist band that said basically 'take me to Chiang Mai Ram Hospital' where we were both registered patients.  Likewise, that hospital had their own ambulances and you could call them to come and get you/wife. Never needed them for anything, but worth the trouble to organise things just in case.

[Bluesofa]

1 hour ago, Faraday said:

Do the Ambulances here carry any emergency equipment?

Yes, I think they must have a spare wheel and a jack.

[Bluesofa]

53 minutes ago, gummy said:

Generally you are correct but there are exceptions. Back in 2010 I was living in Don Mueang area and one Sunday I was cleaning out around our pond in our garden when suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my finger. Yelled to the wife I had just got bitten and she panicked a bit when I said what the snake appeared to look like but she called the emergency number. So I went inside straight away and googled to find out what to do and which snake. By this time several people arrived to try and find the snake , which they did, and according to my googling I should have been dead !!. Anyway to the point the "ambulance" guys arrived and took me to the nearest Thai hospital which they said specialised in snake bites.  Great guys , great government hospital and amassing staff, so not all ambulances are the same.

Yes, the ambulance that came to pick me up wanted to go to the government hospital in Nong Han for some reason. That's about twenty km from the accident and thirty km from Udon.
My wife insisted they take me to the government hospital in Udon (ten km), as it's much closer to where we live. They did as my wife asked.
Someone had called the emergency number 1669 for an ambulance. I don't know if it's luck of the draw which body transport company turns up.

About ten years earlier when my wife and I were knocked of a motorbike by a bucket of water in the face at 8 am on the first morning of songkran, an ambulance turned up and wanted to take us to AEK Udon Hospital, then the most expensive in Udon.
I said no, as I wasn't too badly hurt. They kept insisting until I said I had no money to pay for the hospital. That got rid of them.

[BlueSphinx]

14 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

Yes, the ambulance that came to pick me up wanted to go to the government hospital in Nong Han for some reason. That's about twenty km from the accident and thirty km from Udon.
My wife insisted they take me to the government hospital in Udon (ten km), as it's much closer to where we live. They did as my wife asked.
Someone had called the emergency number 1669 for an ambulance. I don't know if it's luck of the draw which body transport company turns up.

About ten years earlier when my wife and I were knocked of a motorbike by a bucket of water in the face at 8 am on the first morning of songkran, an ambulance turned up and wanted to take us to AEK Udon Hospital, then the most expensive in Udon.
I said no, as I wasn't too badly hurt. They kept insisting until I said I had no money to pay for the hospital. That got rid of them.

In Antwerp, Belgium (my home-town) the leading ambulance service is provided by a private company named AMBUCE.  That name tells it all...