Drink driving
After a few hours in a nightclub in Goa, I decided it was time to leave. But I'd driven there on a scooter I wasn't licensed to drive.. I'd had a bit to drink too...

Don't get me wrong, I insisted to my girlfriend that we walk back and come and collect the scooter tomorrow, but she assured me that I wasn't too bad and besides it was basically a more or less straight road and we'd be back in ten minutes.

So, here's me driving carefully with her on the back, taking the corners slowly and trying to remember where the three speed bumps where...

So after passing them, I accelerated to about 35mph on the last straight, but up ahead was another bastard speed bump.
Shit, i thought, better slow down... which i did, but unfortunately hit the wrong brake (the front one), which suddenly sent me flying through the air for about two seconds and then suddenly GRINDING across the stone laden road in nothing more than shorts and t-shirt.

My only thought was to protect my head, so my elbows got the worst of the initial impact, then my hip and feet. My girlfriend (luckily?) landed on back subsequently winding me further, and then the scooter landed on my ankles....

After a second or two I pulled myself to my feet, checked on her (she had a graze and was shaken but thank god she was fine), whereas I had almost smashed my elbow to bits (or so it felt like) my left hip was missing some skin, with many bits of gravel and rock embedded into it, my hip bone was very bruised, my t-shirt was covered in blood...

Being a man of determination, I picked up the vehicle (fine apart from a knackered kick stand) and got back on... Needless to say I was in shock, but not in much pain at this point.

I drove us back to our guesthouse, returned the scooter and asked my girlfriend to skin up the fattest joint possible (to ease tha pain)whilst I picked bits of rock from my black and purple hip. My whole leg was battered and I had to trim some skin off my elbow with some scissors.

I covered my wounds with anti-septic and then stitched up the wound and dressed it with bandages.

The next day I was in absolute agony and even worse, I hadn't gauzed the wound, so had to peel off tatters of bandage from my fairly deep wound, but at that point after seeing bombay, i was a little wary of Indian hygeine (stupidly)and decided the best course was to just keep rubbing cream onto it.

After a few days it started weeping pus, but I could still walk (barely) and just generally Ray Mears'd it through the rest of the holiday.

It's fine now, but I'm still too afraid of getting my elbows and hip x-rayed just in case they say 'oh dear'...

Length? : about 12 feet of skin peeling road.

:)
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 20 Dec 2007, 23:23, Reply)