Head damage + dislocated shoulder

[ir_fuel]

Just now, meepmeepmayer said:

Can't argue with @LanghamP here. And as far as he has racist opinions (I can't argue either that there were some... statements at least), this isn't one of them

No fighting please. I don't want to split this off into another healthcare discussion because the posts are intertwined with the original topic. Be nice.

@atdlzpae, we all learned a lesson today.

DO NOT DISLOCATE YOUR SHOULDER!

Look what happened because of this 

[erk1024]

On 10/17/2019 at 6:36 PM, Marty Backe said:

The only thing worse than riding thru a puddle (just don't do it) is riding thru grass.

Completely agree about grass--especially the transition between grass and pavement. A couple of my worst crashes were grass related. It's hard NOT to ride through some grass now and then because it's everywhere. But you gotta be ready for anything when you do. 

[Circuitmage]

Yeah, my only speed fall (~15 to 20mph) was on a road to grass transition. 

There was a surprise hole in the grass right as I entered it. Luckily I suffered no injury, as my knee pads did their job as I skidded across the grass. 

I still ride across that same grass almost every day though and have not hit that hole again! Not sure if I am lucky or paying more attention to my ride helps. Either way...I'm gonna keep doing it.

 

[LanghamP]

4 hours ago, Circuitmage said:

Yeah, my only speed fall (~15 to 20mph) was on a road to grass transition. 

There was a surprise hole in the grass right as I entered it. Luckily I suffered no injury, as my knee pads did their job as I skidded across the grass. 

I still ride across that same grass almost every day though and have not hit that hole again! Not sure if I am lucky or paying more attention to my ride helps. Either way...I'm gonna keep doing it.

I learned to ride an EUC on grass, not even the smooth gold course grass but field grass. I didn't want to scratch up my EUC. In retrospect, the grass helped a lot because from the get go I learned a body position that allows for dropping a wheel into unseen and unseeable holes. And I crashed a lot, but grass is the best place to crash. 

I wonder if most people should simply ride a lot on grass while expecting to crash. Most of the time you ride not to crash, so perhaps that's the wrong attitude to take; instead seek to crash often, crash softly, and at low speeds, so that prepares you for the terrible high speed concrete crashes you are sure to eventually have.

[Marty Backe]

10 hours ago, Circuitmage said:

Yeah, my only speed fall (~15 to 20mph) was on a road to grass transition. 

There was a surprise hole in the grass right as I entered it. Luckily I suffered no injury, as my knee pads did their job as I skidded across the grass. 

I still ride across that same grass almost every day though and have not hit that hole again! Not sure if I am lucky or paying more attention to my ride helps. Either way...I'm gonna keep doing it.

 

 

13 hours ago, erk1024 said:

Completely agree about grass--especially the transition between grass and pavement. A couple of my worst crashes were grass related. It's hard NOT to ride through some grass now and then because it's everywhere. But you gotta be ready for anything when you do. 

 

Yep. I had a good fall this past year on a simple transition from grass to pavement. A nice hidden divot at that transition sent me flying off the wheel. I'm even more cautious now about grass.

[Marty Backe]

15 hours ago, fryman said:

Your racist opinions has no place here.  Take it to another forum.

Fortunately, I blocked him ages ago so I rarely see any of this comments. Only when someone happens to quote him like you did 

He seems to have gotten even worse since the last time I saw one of his comments a year or so ago.

[Shaddox27]

That crash sounds like a nightmare, good that you wore your safety gear!

[Rehab1]

On 10/20/2019 at 7:40 PM, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

. Localize that cushion to the elbow and forearms, and we should see a lot less severe shoulder injuries.  Someone needs to develop and market an elbow/forearm skid pad specifically for our sport!  @The Fat Unicyclist - make it so!  

My customized forearm/ elbow pads do offer the shock absorption and skid properties your referring to. My elbow/ firearm  guards have been hit with a mallet while I was wearing them and they definitely redistribute the impact forces.  Unfortunately nothing is a guarantee when dealing with anatomical injury prevention. 
 

I’ve been fabricating custom knee, elbow, shoulder, forearm, hip and cervical braces for decades and their is always a fly in the ointment that can cause a re-injury or fracture due to unforeseen circumstances. That’s why my malpractice insurance is so high. 
Fortunately I’ve only been sued once.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Rehab1

[erk1024]

9 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Yep. I had a good fall this past year on a simple transition from grass to pavement.

Just for completeness sake, for anyone reading this thread, the dangers of grass are:

• It hides holes, bumps, sand, sprinklers, mud, puddles, all of which can cause you to bog down or puncture the tire
• It can be wet or slippery, and your wheel could be wet coming out of it, robbing you of traction
• Grass hides how much lower the dirt is when going back onto cement / pavement

On one of the crashes we discussed on the forum (overlean), before the crash, the guy was on a dirt path and he cut across the grass and onto a sidewalk at a shallow angle (at night). And he was going around 20 mph at the time. That's very risky behavior because of all the reasons above. Trying to get a possibly wet wheel, to climb up onto a cement lip of unknown height at a shallow angle is asking for the wheel to slide / skid sideways. If you consistently do risky behavior, it's just a matter of time before you get a free asphalt sandwich.

Aircraft pilots have a saying: There are OLD pilots, and there are BOLD pilots, but there are no OLD BOLD pilots.  

Edited October 22, 2019 by erk1024

[litewave]

On 10/19/2019 at 10:11 AM, Rehab1 said:

I wish their were a foolproof method to protect the complex anatomy of the shoulder during a accident. There are simply to many range of motion allowances that the joint can perform. 

I hate beating a dead horse to death but I assume their are many new members that are not familiar with my accident so here’s a compendium: 

My humeral head was pulverized into countless fragments last year after impacting my elbow on asphalt at a high velocity when I fell.  The forces then translated up the humeral shaft to the head. 

Unfortunately I have not found or invented any device that would have redirected those forces except for removing my spiked pedals. 

Being my occupation involves creating specialized devices (orthoses) for patients suffering from musculoskeletal and neurological deficits I have experimented with various designs both before and initially after my accident.

Below is a humeral fracture brace that I applied after the accident which I thought might offer some adequate compression through the surrounding tissue to help absorb and diminish any future impact. This was before I met with the ortho surgeon and found out the true biomechanical insult that caused the injury. 

Leading up to the accident I had experimented with full gear but none of this protective apparatus would have saved my shoulder.

I even modified my titan elbow pads to included customized shock absorbers designed with specialized shock absorption foam sandwiched between the existing exoskeletal framework of the elbow pads and a silicone shielded outer layer. 

This was my final attempt to create a protective device that would help diminish the forces that originally caused my fracture. 

If anyone wants to their share ideas on how to fully protect the shoulder after an elbow impacts the ground at a high rate of speed please feel free reply. 

Aside from properly rolling out of a bad situation (best idea)  or wearing a full body cast with groin straps to avoid upward displacement I have not found the answer. 
 

You the man, Dan.

It seems to me that deflecting the force vector away from traveling directly through/up the humerus would be the best approach. In other words, make the elbow pads slippery to skid off the impact surface in addition to dispersing as much force as possible.

So, if I had your awesome medical-engineering knowledge, skills and tools, I would fabricate a 4 or 5-layer design as follows:

1. fashion the elbow cup and forearm extension out of the most slippery hard plastic compound possible, like polished nylon or HDPE or some other superfluid-like hard shell material;

2. next, insert a loose high-absorption middle layer like 3DO that floats inside the plastic (like a helmet MIPS liner) approx. 1/4-3/8" thick;

3.  then add an inner layer of thin, replaceable bubble wrap made out of thicker, more durable plastic (3+mil);

4.  and then add an inside loose liner made out of a super slippery nylon mesh fabric to absorb moisture and 

5. as an option, cover the hard plastic with an outer, replaceable super-slippery durable nylon or other fabric.

The inner bubble wrap could be replaced after a crash or at regular intervals as part of regular maintenance due to wear-and-tear. The outer plastic shield would be covered with a floating super slippery fabric material that could increase the deflection at extra cost.

This solution could be sold:

a. as custom high-end elbow pads;

b. as part of samurai-warrior body armor (similar to the Fox armor you are already wearing); or 

c. integrated into a custom snug-fitting EUC-motorcycle jacket with 3DO shoulder pads (like my Pilot Direct).

Combined with a separate or integrated set of high-impact-absorbing wrap-around shoulder-pads made of 3DO, I think this would be the next evolution in practical EUC rider safety gear.

If someone were to start small and sell these to the community like @EUC GUY, @Duf, or several others have done with custom products at an affordable cost, it could offset R&D while serving the greater good. Add a sexy logo like IMD (IRONMAN DAN DESIGN) on the outside and you'll have a great brand that could expand into Motocross, skate-long-boarding, skiing, snowmobiling, etc.

I think this approach could be embraced and proven by the EUC community (crazy pioneers that we are), and perhaps later purchased or licensed for distribution by a larger company such as Pilot, Fox, Demon, TSG, et al. Just cut me a bonus check and send me royalties, please. Also, please send @Hunka Hunka Burning Love a (somewhat smaller) percentage for his inspiration 

Edited October 23, 2019 by litewave

[Rehab1]

8 hours ago, litewave said:

You the man, Dan.

Not sure about that. Since having a cadaver bone implanted into my humerus my voice will pitch at times.  I can’t find out if the donor was a male or female. 
 

8 hours ago, litewave said:

It seems to me that deflecting the force vector away from traveling directly through/up the humerus would be the best approach. In other words, make the elbow pads slippery to skid off the impact surface in addition to dispersing as much force as possible.

So, if I had your awesome medical-engineering knowledge, skills and tools, I would fabricate a 4 or 5-layer design as follows:

You offer great advice. Trust me I have thought about fabricating modified protective gear but the cost might be to expensive. Custom fit, where the protection is molded directly to the extremity, is the key.

If a modified off the shelf device (knee, wrist , elbow, etc ) rotates or migrates in any way during an accident then the protective properties will be skewed and will diminish the effectiveness. 

I’ve been in touch with a company that that fabricates custom splints that can be easily shaped to an extremely while the structural inner shell hardens. The process takes about 5 minutes to harden. We’re working on a few things so I can’t elaborate at this time. 

I use to custom fabricate clear molded protective covers for EUC pedals and shells but most thought they were far too expensive.

 

 

The Body Guard by Roll. NZ is cheaper and Kevin has an excellent product! 

[atdlzpae]

One month update:
Range of movement is back to 99%. Strength in both strained muscles is back to around 50%.
The only problem is that I can't sleep on my right side, as it's really painful after one hour. I'm sure it will pass.

It's been one month without any faceplants and only one walk-off. So I definitely ride more carefully. And still without a helmet most of the time.

[Hunka Hunka Burning Love]

It took me about a year to pretty much fully recover.   Definitely sleeping on the side that's injured is a pain in the butt and shoulder!    Glad to hear you're getting better.  I think I aggravated mine by going indoor skydiving as it got a bit numb after three flights of two minutes each.  Did you have elbow pads on, and if so, what kind did you use?

[giggidditygiggiddity]

On 10/22/2019 at 4:28 PM, litewave said:

This solution could be sold:

a. as custom high-end elbow pads;

MIPs for the elbow makes sense, since the idea just like the helmet, impact can occur from any direction, sounds practical for knee pads as well. Expect to see premium safety gear should the industry take note.

Euc pick-up line at the corner..."Hey ladies..., my butt has MIPs protection, check it out!". ooOoooOoo lol