Well I got got

[Cannings]

Not travelling particularly fast, maybe 8-10 mph wheel hit a nasty pot hole on a bumpy grit track, sent me flying forward and pretty much landed square on my shoulder.

Dislocation and fracture, caused the need for an operation to put the humorous back in place.

This is a month post flying

[Hunka Hunka Burning Love]

  Oh man that looks just like @Rehab1 surgery.  Sorry to hear about your injury.  

[Marty Backe]

Ouch, that looks nasty. Sometimes I think it's really a roll of the dice whether we survive EUCs without surgery.

When will you be back on the wheel?

[Rehab1]

HOLY SHIT! We are blood brothers! Sorry to see this! I wish you well. Have you started therapy yet?

[Toshio Uemura]

It is a wonderful thing that our body can heal and is not broken once and forever. I hope you heal well soon. Many healing thoughts to you from Japan. ?

[mezzanine]

Seeing those pics makes my blood run cold.  Could happen to any of us.  

[RayRay]

12 hours ago, Cannings said:

Dislocation and fracture, caused the need for an operation to put the humorous back in place

So sad, but cheer up -- you'll be healed and back in no time (stay positive)...

Try not to lose your sense of humor over it. I'm glad that can be repaired (re-placed).

A fractured humerus isn't funny, but hopefully you'll laugh about it someday.

[Glitched]

Is there a (reasonable) kind of armor that can help prevent this injury? (Sure I can read through all the safety gear threads, but figure it would be good to note in this thread as it is on topic)

Sorry to read and see you've had such a terrible accident OP. Hoping you make a full recovery. 

[SanDiegoGuy]

Quote

 

I wonder who is more afraid of falling from looking at the above photos? …… a veteran rider or a completely novice rider who is trying to learn how to ride?

[Jon Stern]

2 hours ago, Glitched said:

Is there a (reasonable) kind of armor that can help prevent this injury? (Sure I can read through all the safety gear threads, but figure it would be good to note in this thread as it is on topic)

Sorry to read and see you've had such a terrible accident OP. Hoping you make a full recovery. 

There are a number of motorcycle jackets with viscoelastic (like d3o) protection in the shoulders (and other areas). The viscoelastic material momentarily stiffens on impact. I'm not an expect, but I would have thought they would help in this kind of unscheduled, high kinetic energy EUC dismount maneuver. 

[Cannings]

4 hours ago, Rehab1 said:

HOLY SHIT! We are blood brothers! Sorry to see this! I wish you well. Have you started therapy yet?

Its a bit different here in the UK my physio sessions so far have each been 20 mins long with him showing me exercises to do, currently 5 weeks post op I am able to get my arm about 90 degrees from my body forwards and sidewards which has been great progress but unbelievably frustrating

And Marty for me I don't think I will as much as I want to if I were to ever land on the shoulder again and pull the pins out I think would be the end of my arm, going to be listing the Tesla on eBay tonight 

 

[Cannings]

Just now, Jon Stern said:

There are a number of motorcycle jackets with viscoelastic (like d3o) protection in the shoulders (and other areas). The viscoelastic material momentarily stiffens on impact. I'm not an expect, but I would have thought they would help in this kind of unscheduled, high kinetic energy EUC dismount maneuver. 

To be honest I don't think any type of armour save a full metal suit would have stopped this just due to the angle of my fall and my arm being underneath me

[Jon Stern]

1 minute ago, Cannings said:

To be honest I don't think any type of armour save a full metal suit would have stopped this just due to the angle of my fall and my arm being underneath me

Well, I guess that it'd need something where force on the shoulder pad is redistributed to the torso of the jacket. I'm not sure if any work like that. There are probably some motorcyclists on here that would know.

[Toshio Uemura]

3 hours ago, Glitched said:

Is there a (reasonable) kind of armor that can help prevent this injury? (Sure I can read through all the safety gear threads, but figure it would be good to note in this thread as it is on topic)

Sorry to read and see you've had such a terrible accident OP. Hoping you make a full recovery. 

There are several kinds of airbag motorcycle jackets, that might offer some protection. But this stuff is very expensive.

https://www.wired.com/2013/09/dainese-d-air-thorax/

[Jon Stern]

36 minutes ago, Toshio Uemura said:

There are several kinds of airbag motorcycle jackets, that might offer some protection. But this stuff is very expensive.

https://www.wired.com/2013/09/dainese-d-air-thorax/

There are some (much) cheaper ones, like Hit-Air, but I've not found any that include shoulder protection, like those Dainese ones do. Maybe a bit more searching is in order.

[kangzy]

 really sorry to see this. Hope you make a speedy recovery bud!

[meepmeepmayer]

Ouch!!!!!!!  That looks B-A-D! Hoping for you it will heal fast and without after effects.

I'm starting to think whether and how badly one gets injured in a crash is mostly chance. Some people survive a 50km/h fall with minor scratches, some people go along slowly and end up in the hospital like you.

Only safe way to ride is not to crash I guess. Always looking where one is going.

I fully understand your decision to quit. Even a minor fall can be pretty demoralizing, this must be... eek. But maybe in a year when your arm is healed, you'll feel the urge again Good luck for now.

[LanghamP]

3 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

 

Only safe way to ride is not to crash I guess. Always looking where one is going.

 

Crash more often, not less, especially on those edge cases, on purpose in order to be safer.

Crashes have two components;

--The inability, often out of your control, to read the situation.

--The inability to recover when the wheel and you are in a changed state (no rider has ever crashed while going in a straight line on a perfectly flat road).

Unfortunately, because a wheel's natural state is crashing, and only kept up by magic, it follows there are way more dangers to wheels than to, say, a bicycle. No one ever crashes going up a moderate hill on any other vehicle but we do it all the time on wheels.

 

[Circuitmage]

Yikes. I blame the hole.

 

[Rehab1]

10 hours ago, Cannings said:

ts a bit different here in the UK my physio sessions so far have each been 20 mins long with him showing me exercises to do, currently 5 weeks post op I am able to get my arm about 90 degrees from my body forwards and sidewards which has been great progress but unbelievably frustrating

You are making excellent progress!   I was not able to start therapy for a month post op as my fracture was the humeral head.  Be sure to perform your exercises at home regularly. Ice as necessary. The exercises will cause discomfort but don't go to the extremes where it causes significant pain. I'm currently 6 months post op and still have a degree of pain when exercising but it is manageable. 

Have you went back to the scene of your accident? I would love to see a photo of the pot hole that caused your serious accident.

 

1 hour ago, LanghamP said:

The inability to recover when the wheel and you are in a changed state 

 

That would definitely summarize hitting a pot hole. I have not seen @Cannings ominous crater that threw him but I can attest that hitting a huge depression at high speed and suddenly being catapulted into the air with no chance of recovery ranks among one of the worst scenarios that can happen while riding a wheel. 

[Hunka Hunka Burning Love]

After surgery like that, I don't blame someone for not wanting to risk falling on the arm again.  Even my less severe shoulder injury is still bothering me three weeks after the fact.    Re-injuring it again so soon during a ride is not an option for me so I'm on hiatus for now.  Here's a pretty handy website for information about some shoulder injuries:

https://www.thesteadmanclinic.com/patient-education/shoulder/

I think a large part of the problem is that it's difficult to realize how easy it is to get injured riding an electric unicycle when most of the time it's so stable and effortless.  Unexpected road irregularities and unknown factors can come into play very quickly.  Unless you have cat-like reflexes or crazy ninja / parkour skills, oftentimes you're falling under less than ideal circumstances.

[Biped Phil]

Ow!  Not long ago, I encountered a madman on a OneWheel who told me that the most important thing is to know how to fall.  And the right way to fall is to land on your knee- and elbow-pads, rather than an outstretched arm.  On the other hand, there is a YouTube of another madman explaining that the most important thing is to know how to fall.  And the right way to fall is to retract your head to the far end of your neck, make impact with the shoulder, and roll head-over-heels.  Well?  Well?

[RayRay]

58 minutes ago, Biped Phil said:

Well?  Well?

Doesn't matter. When we fall it's face first, no time to react.

No time to tuck-and-roll. You become a 'human pendulum' (head slams to the ground like a closing mousetrap)....

Spoiler

 

[EUCMania]

At 8-10m/h, that is really an unlucky fall. I hope you recover well recover fast.

When I am still new to do EUC, I trust the wheel less, so I run off from the wheel more often and more easily. After I become better at riding EUC, I trust EUCs more. However, this trust translates to that I will stay on EUC a bit longer in bad situations. This delay can make face planting and injury more likely.and more severe. 

How to train myself to deal with some sudden irregularities where we only have 2 seconds to react? My solution is to quickly lower down my body by bending my knee and trying to break. This way, the load on the pedal is much less for a little time, and I can absorb more shock force to prevent detaching feet and pedals, to make EUC climbing out of the hole without losing much speed.....The lowered center of gravity of my body also makes rolling possible should I fall.

But, how to train for the situation when I do not have 2 seconds to react? I imagine to have a slider on a rail. I stand on the slider while it move forward. At the end of the rail, there is a blocker to stop the slider, and send me out face planting into a soft surface. The goal is to try to run off from the slider with minimum impact on my body.If I can run 2 steps before I fall, a lot of energy can be dissipated and body rolling become possible.

 

 

[LanghamP]

I stepped off earlier this week when I was going around a street corner and grounded my inside footpad on a very slight pavement cracks. The wheel disappeared instantly; catching a footpad on anything is basically unsaveable.

@EUCMania mentions "going down with the Titanic" once you get some confidence with a wheel. Basically I have no confidence in any of my wheels and assume that at any time for any or no reason it will fail, or I'll hit a malicious Goliath beetle, and so I bail a lot while I'm still mostly upright.

Once your head dips below your waist it's curtains and surgery for you. Bailing extremely early in the crash process (whee, false positives) makes most crashes casual step offs.