>>27039Oh, I completely forgot about my two cycling accidents. (mental block, anypony)
The first time I was biking home from the school bus stop. I had my winter coat on with an attached hood. As I crossed a street I turned my head to the left to check for oncoming traffic - except the hood was attached to my shoulders and didn't move with me. I was blinded temporarily just as I hit the street. By the time I got my bearings back I hit the edge of the curb and caught air. Now, even in 7th grade I was a mountain of a man, and all that weight - and my backpack full of books - came crashing down on the end of my mountain bike handlebars, pinching my intestine between it and my spine.
Jumping ahead: emergency exploratory surgery - three week hospital stay over Thanksgiving - foot and a half scar down my stomach - would have bled out internally if my liver had gotten pinched instead. Needless to say I don't wear hooded coats anymore, nor do I ride mountain bikes.
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The second major bike accident was just pure stupidity. A couple years later I was riding home from my piano lesson when it started to rain. I was not dressed for bad weather and was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts and hiking sandals.
I was approaching the mane intersection in town when the light turned red. I tried to brake but the rain had made my rubber brakes useless. In a blind panic I tried to slow down by stepping on my front tire. My foot slipped off the top of the wheel and promptly got jammed between the spokes and the front fork - recall that I was wearing sandals.
I flipped over the handlebars (the only time I've ever taken an honest header) and landed square on my chest. Mercifully, the town had recently re-paved mane street and the rain-slick tar let me slide for a good ten feet without tearing my face to pieces. Amazingly I didn't end up breaking my foot, but I had a lump the size of a softball on top of it for a good month.
More amazing was that my bike was totaled after this accident but survived the first one with only minimal damage.