So I Crashed A Motorcycle...

"I don't like helicopters. I've only been in one once, and it crashed."
That's the first thing I remember saying, as the paramedic was strapping me to the back board. Apparently my argument worked because they decided to cancel the air lift and take me to the hospital by ambulance instead.
Note to our queasy readership, graphic arm reconstruction images below the fold

I still don't remember the accident or what caused it. Three days later, with morphine obscuring my ability to distinguish fact from fantasy, I do have a vague, split-second clip running through my mind. It plays like a first-person reel from Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know the scene where the Nazi BMW rider gets a pole shoved in his spokes? It plays like that, only I was that rider and not Harrison Ford.

I don't remember what caused it, or hitting the ground, but apparently I hit it pretty hard. According to my doctor, my official diagnosis was a concussion and "a Galeazzi Fracture, which is an eponym for an injury pattern which includes a fracture of the radial shaft and dislocation of the Distal Radial Ulnar Joint (i.e., the end of the two forearm bones)." In addition to the titanium plate you see in the picture, there's a pin holding my wrist together and one by my elbow holding a fractured piece of bone on. And thus I have become the bionic man.

There are no X-rays yet. My surgeon ― a Jalopnik reader himself ― sent them as some form of strange file I haven't the will nor the technical prowess to open. He was probably much too excited about the 996 Turbo being financed at least in part by all my operations to send them in a normal format.

Every scrap of riding gear I was wearing at the time was destroyed, but thank God I was wearing it. Aside from my head and back, the forearms were the most protected area on my body, benefiting from the overlapping hard jacket armor and racing gloves. I did manage to get some decent road rash on my legs.

It's going to be six to eight weeks until I can drive or ride again, but hopefully I'll be able to start posting again next week. Until then, ride (or drive) safely.

Send an email to Wes Siler, the author of this post, at wes@jalopnik.com.