[van-man]

was cut short when I fell in morning practice.

I fell exiting the fastest turn on the track too! Fortunately, I was able to turn a potential highside into a lowside, which kept the bike from tumbling.
However, misfortune prevailed as the seam on the pinky finger of my left glove failed and left my finger exposed as I proceeded to fall on my left hand. My hand was only under me for a second, but that was long enough to do serious damage to my hand.
My little finger was ground, longitudinally, through almost half the bone; literally erasing all of the extensor tendons on the top of the finger, over the middle knuckle.

After a whole day in the ER trying to find a hand surgeon, and another day to make an attempt at reconstructive surgery, I still have all my fingers, but hardly any use of my left hand (yes, I'm a lefty). It has taken me 20min to type the text you see to this point!

Soooo, in the interest of grossing everyone out, I'm going to post pics from the ER as a reminder to the moral of the story; and that is, even good gloves go bad after more than one season of use. So, buy new gloves every year or this could be you!























safety buffer for those who don't want to see this....

[van-man]

before any cleaning, and after a saline rinse...

[van-man]

After a real good scrubbing!

[van-man]

Hog tied together to keep the bone covered during my pre-surgery stay.

I have more post-op pics coming, and i'll post up more about the details of the surgery when I get them

[hatchet]

Originally Posted by van-man

Hog tied together to keep the bone covered during my pre-surgery stay.

I have more post-op pics coming, and i'll post up more about the details of the surgery when I get them

Sorry too hear about the crash,that looks bad, hope you heal up fast and get back too racing soon,heal up soon

[markthebike]

Thanks for that mate I just had my breakfast!!

Seriously though that is bad news. I hope your pinky makes a speedy recovery. Good luck with it Van.

[van-man]

I gave a safety buffer!!! lol!

Right now the challenge is getting healed up enough to make the deployment in Oct...

[markthebike]

Do you need a pinky to fly??

[van-man]

Well, unfortunately, they've had to rob peter to pay paul and so I don't have much use of my left hand right now... I've got a rather nasty post op pic that i'll post tomorrow.

But there are other considerations too, like opening an escape hatch, firing a weapon, etc. in addition to just having the open wound closed up

[markthebike]

Oh yeah forgot about all that. Was just thinking of the "joy stick". Hope it's not your joy stick hand because that would be devastating!!

[Steve976]

Oh man, Ill bet the scrubbing was worse than the injury!! I crashed a dirt bike when I was 14 and used my face to break my fall on a gravel road. All I remeber about being in the hospital is three nurses laying on top of me while scrubbing.

[froggert]

ouch! hope you heal fast..

chicks dig scars.

[Tifosi]

Awe man, I'm sending some positive vibes in your general direction so that you heal up soon I hope you regain full motion and feeling.

This is kind of ironic...last weekend my friend had a minor lowside, but the knuckle armor on his gloves snapped off and his knuckle was ground down to the bone...sorta like in your photos. We looked over his gloves and noted the leather does not continue over the knuckles, there are two pieces of neoprene between his knuckles and the knuckle armor...yikes. I looked at my gloves and found the same type of construction...so we all may want to check our glove construction I think I'll be switching to Helds next season.

I'm in the same boat as you are after lowsiding and hitting the wall after my brakes failed at about 130 miles per with about 150yds to stop before tire wall...I'm currently nursing a discolated shoulder...

[van-man]

I'm working on trying to get a certain new glove mfg to hook us all up with some of thier new CE certed gloves

tifosi! get a one piece suit for goodness sake!

[Tifosi]

Originally Posted by van-man

I'm working on trying to get a certain new glove mfg to hook us all up with some of thier new CE certed gloves

Oh hell yeah

Originally Posted by van-man

tifosi! get a one piece suit for goodness sake!

Yeah, that got nixed from the 2009 budget when the market for selling the 998 imploded I got the same advice last weekend, so I'll be sending some sponsor-me packages out to some leather mfgs. soon.

[Ducjak]

That looks painfull, hopefully you heal up soon. I know now i will be checking out the construction of my gloves..

[Tifosi]

Any updates? How is the healing coming along? Any movement or feeling coming back?

[ROAD and TRACK]

Sorry to hear about this Van. I prolly would have had them cut it off. hehehe Just because I'm scared of the hospital.

As for the gloves:
I don't use the HELD, but Madduc, you are wrong about them.

[van-man]

I'll post an update with another round of pics tomorrow. I think these are even rougher to look at because of the unnatural way they opted to repair the finger.

btw, the company I'm trying to talk to is highvelocitygear.com
they are a new, US company that has taken it upon themselves to get their gloves certified to every relevant CE certification. And only the second in the US to offer the knox protection on the glove. Hopefully some good can come of this.

[Desmo]

We had a racer here lose a pinky this season, sounds like your situation might be worse. Hope you have a full and speedy recovery!

Also second the argument above for Held, I lowsided in my Phantoms just a few weeks back and skidded with my arm pinned underneath me for quite a ways on the tarmac. The forearm of my Dainese suit was ground through to the armor but the Helds looked like they were barely touched, the Stingray skin had the top layer scuffed showing the green bit underneath and the kangaroo on the palm was scuffed a little but the gloves overall look like new and should be good for many more similar events.

[van-man]

well, I just got home and its too late for me to upload the latest round of pics tonight.
But i promise to get them uploaded tomorrow so you all can have another good gross-out before the weekend!

[Axecent]

When John Ulrich was doing his glove stories based on crash damage, I seem to remember the Held Gloves having the best record, but that was probably 10+ years ago. I have crashed numerous times in Helds and never had any issue. I crashed in a new pair of 'another' brand and tore the palm flat out of them and dislocated my elbow. I am back to Held gloves again.

[van-man]

Originally Posted by Desmo

We had a racer here lose a pinky this season, sounds like your situation might be worse. Hope you have a full and speedy recovery!

Thanks. But I think I'll be keeping my finger attached so, I wouldn't call it worse... If anything, I consider myself fortunate.

Tell your friend he's welcome to come by and take advantage of this group buy we've got going for CE certed gloves!

[van-man]

Ok, now I'll finally talk about the repair and recovery.

First, the damage was found to be complete stripping of the flesh, near complete removal of the extensor tendons, and severe abrasion to the bone. The latter concerned the doctors most because infections to the bone travel quicker through the body and are more deadly. Thankfully, there has been no problem there.

The reconstructive surgery was more elaborate than I had imagined it would be. See, the surgeons, decided to recruit the ring finger to help nurse the little finger back to health.
They took the flesh on the ring finger and divided it in two layers. They folded the top layer away from the little finger and then laid the under layer of flesh over the little finger, while keeping it attached to the ring finger (like a trifold pamphlet). In this way, the little finger is receiving blood flow from both fingers. While doing this, they also tacked the remaining tendon nubs down to the bone to see if they re-attach.
Next, they took a thick skin graft from inside the elbow and stitched it down over the little finger. And, closed it all up by laying the top layer os skin back over the ring finger. They then put pins through the back of both knuckles on the hand, and another through the tip of the little finger to immobilize the two fingers.

After 4 weeks they will separate the fingers and I'll get to see what I can do with the little finger... I suspect I will have almost no extensor movement.


now for the pics... prepare yourself

[Steve976]

Wow, ahh, all I can say.... heal up quick man. That is amazing what they can do. Your hand actually looks better than I imagined. Keep us updated on your recovery Van.