Attention Please: Will the owner of the red Honda...

As usual, I just had to be unique.

Due to the odd bit of pain and swelling, I took just a few ibuprofen 3 days in a row. Ibuprofen has always messed with my stomach and my stomach got pretty irate with me by Wed morning.

After lunch on Wed I started experiencing from pretty hefty gut pain. Nothing to call 911 over but of some concern since I've never experienced internal injuries before so I wasn't sure what they might feel like - and it was more than just "did I really eat *all* those onion rings again" sort of pain.

I was in town at the time, and since I live 35 miles from the nearest hospital, I figured I'd schedule a quick 10 minute appt with the doc. I've already done the "aw that pain will go away eventually" that caused me to endure that 40 minute drive at 3am with a big kidney stone. I don't care to repeat that experience.

Got in to see the doc at 2:45pm.

At around midnight I got out of surgery :eek1

It wasn't the wreck or internal injuries, it was the freaking ibuprofen!

It seems I had a critter called a Meckle's diverticulum. When we're embryos, sometimes when the small intestine separates from the stomach it takes some of the stomach's cells that produce acid with it. Those cells are able to produce acid *inside* the small intestine - where there is no stomach lining to protect against it! It's been there all my life, I just happened to push it too far this time. The doc snipped out 2" of my small intestine and stitched the loose ends back together, problem solved. (Well except for the fact that the scars on my beer belly have completely ruined my career as a centerfold model)

Meckle's is something that only affects about 2% of the population, and only about 5% of that 2% ever show any symptoms, and even fewer need surgery - the surgeon said I was only the fourth one he'd ever seen and only one other required treatment.

I think I was actually even "luckier" than that; the intestine was very inflamed and easily could have perforated, with the same consequences as a ruptured appendix. If that had happened on one of my usual rides 30-50 miles from here and then I had the additional 35 miles to get to the hospital, it would have been pretty ugly ride.

Moral of the story - never assume that correlation is causation, and when in doubt, just let the fuckin' doc take a quick poke at you. It just might save you a lot of time and agony in the long run.

Holy Shite!!!! :eek1. In some messed up way, that kid may have done you a favor. So glad to hear you're ok.

Ouch. Painful video to watch. So glad you didn't get hurt badly.

The Luck 'O the Irish works in mysterious ways!

Thanks - I'm really glad they didn't have helmet cameras back when I had my first head-on (in mid-air) otherwise I'd probably still be cringing! :eek1

I think once every 30 years is enough for head-ons. Next time I think I'll try a nice lowside in some soft sand or something.

I think you taught the kid a whole lot more just by the calm responsible manner in which you handled the situation. Freakin out and swearing makes everything worse.

This is a good story. I appreciate not only the fact that nobody was seriously injured, but also the mature way in which you handled it. Apologies do go a long way, and you gave the young man an opportunity to learn on his own, instead of being forced into some position of apology through litigation or intimidation. Good 'old fashioned way of handling it.

Props to you both.

Although I don't have any dirt experience, I probably would have taken the .83 second warning time you had to execute a sweet jump over the kid. Bike and all. I might have also flipped whilst in the air and Stuck the landing like Mary Lou Retton. What you did was cool in its own way.

Sorry about the surgery. I think that accident was just one of those 'sh!t happens" sort of things. I recently ate it hard in the desert and went to the emergency room after 2 days of sore gut/stomach ache. I feared spleen, but they just said bruises. My pops told me at least a couple things I try to always think about when out in the desert:

1. Never fly over a hill without knowing what's on the other side.

2. Never go further than you want to walk back.

Not sure your deal was avoidable though.

RZ Rob

You handled that situation with a lot of class and maturity. We were all idiots on dirtbikes back in " the day". I get the cold sweats when I think of all the stupid stuff I've done on motorcycles over the years. Heal quick and get back out there!

I appreciate you getting that on video and taking the trouble to post it. When I trail ride or street ride, I try really hard to not out run my site lines. The result is that most of the time feel bored and stupid for doing so. Where I ride, once the foliage comes in, almost every right turn corner I carve is governed by the sight line, not the bike or the rider. It makes a lot of really fun rides a little less fun. And after days, months, and years of doing it and being utterly unsurprised by anything, I start to wonder why I bother.

Then I watch a video like this, and remember. Oh yeah. That's why I bother. :)

Even that one would have been tricky though. Even if you weren't, he clearly was, and he panicked and turned into you. That's a pretty tricky scenario to maintain a margin to be able to effectively mitigate.

I'm probably the only one who thinks this was a no fault collision aside from the target fixation. When you ride dirt you are going to eventually have to outride your sightline. If this wasn't the case the OP could have seen the kid coming and avoided him but in reality needed to maintain momentum to crest the hill though in this instance he could have almost certainly gone slower and still made it up the hill..

As to positioning... it is a dirt two track not a road with lanes. And since neither the OP had crested the hill at the time of impact nor the kid started going down it, right of way to uphill traffic doesn't apply.

Shit happens, that is dirt riding and of course it is always the other guy's fault.