It was probably inevitable that at some point, with all of our mountain biking, I would be posting about a wreck. Hopefully I won't have another one to write about for a long time. We all went to Powder Mountain the Monday before the race to pre-ride the course. Jake and Zack started out with all the fast people. Kate and I rode together, not so fast. About half-way through the course one of our friends rode up to me and asked me if the keys were in the car. When I asked him why he said Zack had wrecked, was probably concussed, and needed to get to the hospital. I could see a car in front of me heading up the trail. They had loaded Zack in the car to get him back to the parking lot. I took off after the car and Kate followed as fast as she could behind me. One of the many miracles we experienced is that we all somehow got to the parking lot at the same time. This was a 5 mile course, so the chances of that happening are slim to none. Also, Zack happened to wreck on one of the few areas on the course that are accessible with a car. Another miracle for sure.
Anyway, we got Zack into the car and took off for the hospital in Ogden. As a side note, and to document for posterity, Jake told me to drive because I drive faster than him. Yep, you heard it here. Poor Zack was in so much pain as we drove. He was mostly whimpering in the back seat. So I drove extra fast. Apparently he and Jake went to pass some kids and Zack hit a rock wrong and was on the ground before he even realized he was falling. He was going pretty fast and hard, so he fell fast and hard. He landed hard on his left side. He got a big cut above his eye, and for a few minutes couldn't see anything out of that eye. His hip and his hand hurt bad, but mostly his head was hurting him at this point. He never lost consciousness, which is good. In fact, his helmet didn't even get a scratch on it because he hit the side of his face, not his head. So that wasn't very helpful. His sunglasses got really scratched up. If he hadn't been wearing them there's a good chance his injury to his eye would have been a lot worse. I forget that when you're mountain biking you wear glasses as much for protection as you do for the sun. This wreck was a good reminder of all of the little safety things we do when we're riding.
After he fell a bunch of coaches from the Farmington mountain bike team got right to work on him. They were so helpful. They got his cut all bandaged up and took really good care of him. They were the ones who got him in their car and to the parking lot. At the race we went over and met them and said thanks. Gotta love Farmington people!
So we spent a really long night at the hospital. I knew Zack was feeling better when he said he might never be able to go on a mission because he would still be in the hospital waiting to be seen. It was not a fast process. They did a CT scan of his head and xrays of his hand and hip. All of those looked good, so they stitched up his cut. He ended up with 13 stitches. Gratefully we were close to family, so parents came to help. My dad and Jake were able to give Zack a blessing and Tracy kept us company. The girls went to Dad and Kathy's house, which was much better than having them stuck there all night. We finally got back home at 1:15 in the morning. Sage was excited that this was the latest she'd ever been awake.
Zack is mostly good to go now. He had to miss that mountain bike race, which he was really bummed about. But he's back mountain biking again and raced in Vernal over the weekend. No wrecks this time. His left eye is still really blurry. We're hopeful that his vision will come back completely, but there's a chance it will be permanently blurry. All in all, we feel blessed that the wreck wasn't any worse.
