The Splinter Event

Occurred on March 11, 2017 / Big River Forest, Victoria, Australia

Info from Licensor: "While riding in the Big River forest, just out of Melbourne, over the recent Labor day weekend with some mates of mine, I happened to be behind Dan at the moment he misjudged a branch he had already ridden past several times that weekend, to have it impale him through his riding boot. Initially we assumed it had barely entered his leg, just enough to make him bleed, and with no hope in hell of him being able to ride out of there with it in place it was decided that it would be removed.
Once this was done, I did plan on bandaging him up. I carry military grade field dressings for such events, and other gear. It was decided to just get back to camp which was about 18 kms away via more rutted and overgrown single trail, and open firetrails. I stayed on Dan's back wheel keeping an eye on him and the blood loss. We were almost back at camp at which point I took off ahead to get things organized for a patch up and evacuation. I do hold a first aid certification and have been involved directly in and attended many serious incidents over 40 years of riding and racing, so I'm well past the stage of falling apart in an emergency. Due to lack of phone reception for about 15 kms from where we were, once we had Dan stabilized, we loaded him into a car to drive him to the nearest sealed road to then call for help. Help arrived about 2 hours later with the cops and ambulance showing up. He was transferred to the Box Hill hospital where he underwent surgery to remove the remaining stick and feed him some blood as he had lost a fair bit. An artery was sewn back together, the lump of wood presumably helped to keep it from being a gusher. Two skin graft operations were needed to patch him up and he spent a total of 11 days in hospital as he kept getting bumped back for more urgent cases. He is now quite well although still not back at work with another 3 weeks to go.