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@marcomarcos
Great to hear you're on the mend Jim.
I read this thread yesterday and Scooby's comments made me wish I'd taken a first aid course at work, just in case I ever found myself in a similar situation.
So this morning on the way to Leyton Station a guy I see several times a week is riding up the small incline, slips a gear, looses his balance and goes over in cartoon like slow-mo. There were shrieks from some of the ladies in the station who thought he'd been run over by a bus but fortunately that wasn't the case. Myself and a lady passer by got him out of the road and I called an ambulance. He had a bad leg, was in shock, a big egg bruise on his forehead and quite a bit of blood but nothing worse thank goodness. Having read about this kind of thing on this forum I knew just to keep talking to him and keep him on the ground until help arrived. He was keen to stand up though so it wasn't easy.
When the ambulance arrives he looked a bit better and was talking OK. Interesting though that when he tried to climb the small steps into the ambulance for a check-over his legs gave way - he was clearly in a much worse state than he thought.
Another thing it made me think about was that he didn't have a helmet on. He crashed at about 5mph, sideways, and this was the result. I have a helmet and never wear it unless the Mrs is out with me, I think it probably takes something like this to make you realise the damage you can do not wearing one; in this case I'm certain my friend would have escaped without the cut head, the egg bruise, the concussion and the blood. I'm not saying I'll be wearing a helmet in future but at least now I've seen the potential consequences first hand and it wasn't nice. I wouldn't want someone having to look after me after something similar, or worse.
I hope Jim doesn't mind me posting this story on his thread, if anyone feels it should be moved elsewhere then please go ahead.
Marco