I chipped my board and tore a good amont of skin while longboarding earlier today. It was pretty gnarly.
On the way back from the garage sale, I was think that it would be great if I could stop by the farmer's market and by myself a tasty loaf of bread. So I did. Since it's was Saturday and the frequency of most of the buses are about an hour, I decided to longboard all the way home. (I checked Google Map, from the garage sale, the farmer's market was 2.0 miles away and my house was another .5 mile away in the same direction.)
It was fun. The area I went through to get to the capitol square were mostly housing lots. The pavement was really super smooth and, imagine your housing area on saturday morning, there was no car at all (ok I lied. There were like 1 or 2 cars). Plus the scenery was beautiful with the yellow fall leaves and nice suburban houses. Picture below. I was so psyched. It was a perfect condition to practice my tricks. So I did. It was awesome to have the whole street to myself. I did a couple of grab tricks and a lot of cross stepping variation. One thing about variation, it is pretty hard to find a place to practice them because you need a wide open space to practice them. I was always dying to try out the Peter Pan variation, but never had the courage to do so, especially when the road I usually ride on to class are mostly narrow and heavy-trafficked.
I enjoyed riding through those streets. By the time I was near the capitol square, I was pretty exhausted from all the riding and practicing tricks. I didn't felt like going to the Farmer's Market anymore. Plus, the few feet towards it was a super steep incline. I said to myself "No thanks." I was on Mifflin St @ Hancock St at that point and when I looked to the right on Hancock St, I saw the James Madison Park. It was overlooking the Mendota lake and the view was magnificent. Plus, it was a downhill riding too. That is always a good thing. Downhill = easy riding. So, like a moth to a flame, I was simplistically attracted to the park and went down the hill. Here a map to help you visualize: http://bit.ly/r6vyIP
That was when it happened. I fall of my board and into a clumsy rolling motion. I loose control and started rolling downhill. I tried to minimize injury by absorbing the fall with my hands and hoped for the best. It happened within a fraction of seconds. I wasn't exactly sure how it happened. I could be because I was pretty exhausted at that time, or could be because the pavement was a bit crooked, or maybe I simply wasn't paying attention. Well, one thing for sure, it happened. And I was lying there on the ground in the middle of the street.
To my surprised, I wasn't in a great pain at all. I however did caught a glance of my right feet when I was rolling. I noticed the big skin tore even before I stopped rolling. It was pretty gnarly. I lied there and thought to myself "Ah, this is gonna hurt. It hurt just by looking at it." but after awhile, it didn't hurt at all. I wasn't in any pain. When I was checking for any other cuts or bruises, suddenly a voice came from the side walk "Are you okay dude?" There was this guy who came towards me.
He asked me if I was okay and I joked that it was a good thing none of my bones were broken. Then he helped me up and started to papah me. I was hanging on to his shoulder just to see if I could walk. After like 100 short and wobbly steps, I tried to walk on my own.
By the way, the guy's name was Yoshi. He was a nice guy. When we were walking, he offered me if I want to go to his house and sterile my tore with some alcohol. We also chatted a little bit. He was a longboarder too. He already graduated and is a UW alumni. He asked a couple of question like where I live and what year in school I was so I answered. I asked him where he was going. He said he was going to the coffee shop to read some books. He said it kinda became his Saturday morning routine to kill time.
When we were nearing the James Madison Park, we had to part ways because my house and the coffee shop was on opposite direction. We exchange handshake and he told me to take care of myself. I thanked he and said I was sorry to trouble him on his Saturday morning. And then he was like "No no no. None at all. This is a pretty interesting Saturday morning for me." I LOL'ed and so did he. We said goodbye.
So walked the rest of the way home. I was hoping there were a faucet on the my way home so that I can rinse the tore before it get infected but there were none. So I walked and got home. When I was outside of the house, I noticed my board was cracked. Aww, man. That wasn't exactly a pleasant discovery. It cracked at the place where I usually grab my board to do tricks. I could see splinters in my palm in the near future.
So I got to the apartment, rinse the wound, apply some disinfectant and remove the excess skin. I spend a pretty good amount of time just to rinse the wound. The skin tore completely. It wasn't just blood on the exposed area, there were flesh. OMG. I never had this kind of wound before. It was pretty hard to rinse the blood of since I didn't know which was blood and which was flesh. It was pretty gnarly.
After I had successfully treated the wound, I took like a 3 hours nap. Hahaha. I guess I was pretty exhausted from all the longboarding.
After a while, I thought to myself. There's was a few lesson to be learned today:
Lesson 1: Longboarding is dangerous. You could get hurt pretty bad.
Lesson 2: When you are tired, never go down a hill you never tried before.
Lesson 3: Wear shoes! Flip flop is never a good idea for longboarding.
Lesson 4: Wear long trousers. Similar to shoes, it will help protect your feet from cut or tore.
It was a pretty interesting experience. I may have to stop longboarding for a while. Well, I should have since I won't be able to wear shoes from that injury. Oh, I just realized. I have to start walking or cycling to class like everyone else did. Aiya. This is lame. I want to longboard. :|
Kena sembahyang duduk la lepas ni.
Syazwi Mazli had an accident and blogged about it, that day.
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