Rohloff boy out of action for a while due to freak gardening accident.

Here's one for the books. Sorry-I had means or mood to take photos at the time!

On Thursday I was busily sawing off the remains of some fronds from a palm tree(the last 10-12 inches coming out of the trunk that everyone leaves because of the 3-4 inch spikes) as I didn't want my customer to get hurt by the thorns.

Sawing from underneath one (bearing in mind it was 10 inches long and would have weighed a couple hundred grams at most), with my palm facing upwards, it fell only 3-4 inches onto my wrist and 2 spikes punctured my skin, one hitting an inch from the base of my palm, the other another 2 inches towards my elbow. I didn't see the frond enter or fall out of my arm it was that quick.

I felt instant pain and tingling in my fingers and the wound sites instantly swelled up massively. I couldn't bend my wrist nor grip anything and I knew something was pretty wrong even though I'd been hit by a spike in the leg a few months ago and nothing bad had come of it.

Luckily my offsider was with me and he took me to Emergency. In the 4 lovely hours I was there (quick shout out to Hornsby Kurunggai Hospital-those people are the best) I had xrays and ultrasound, neither of which picked up anything. I got to chat with the onsite specialist who said there didn't look like there was anything left in there and because I only had numbness in one half of my ring finger, it wasn't likely that my medial nerve had been cut. He said the options were to leave it & see how it goes or to cut it open & have a look around to make sure the nerves & tendons weren't damaged. He decided to call the hand surgeon anyway who said he wanted to have a look inside.

So yesterday I went back & had the wrist opened up and it turns out there was still an 18mm piece of spike still in my wrist. It had actually gone through my medial(?) nerve but just parted the fibres and not cut any (hence why my whole hand wasn't numb, just half of one finger). Extremely lucky I think! Anyhow, I've been stitched up, on antibiotics and bandaged, unable to lift anything heavy for a week (my offsider is going to be busy next week) and unable to fully bend my wrist or grip stuff, so riding is out for me for a few weeks.

I hear you saying-what an unfortunate and freakish accident, and such a nice boke aswell. I know.

Anyway, now I've bored you to tears you can go back to sleep. I'm off to sulk now. Hopefully see you on the trails soon.