My Broken Leg!

I had been riding dirt bikes for a few months, when a group of friends and I went to another friend's place at Sunny Corner near Lithgow for a motorbike riding weekend.

I still didn't have a motorbike of my own, but my friends would take turns of lending me their bikes to ride.

It had been such a great weekend and we were all having a lot of fun. It was nearing the end of the weekend and we were about to pack up to head home, when my friend and I decided to have one last ride.

We were only riding on a flat paddock, but it had been raining about half an hour beforehand.

As my friend came up behind me, we thought we'd have a little bit of a race. Not a good idea.

I hadn't been riding for very long and I was on a friend's Yamaha YZ 125 which was too big and too heavy for me. 

When I would stop, I would need to have someone there to catch me because when the bike was stationary, I couldn't reach the ground and when I did, I wasn't strong enough to hold the bike up. 

As my friend and I were racing, I was coming up way too quickly to a barbed wire fence. 

The bike started jumping around and at the time I wasn't sure what was going on. I know now that I locked up the front brake, which is a good way to lose control of the bike.

As the bike was jumping around, I went to turn and as it had been raining earlier, the grass was very slippery. 

The front wheel slipped out from under me as I went to turn and my natural reaction was to put my leg out for balance. Also a bad idea. 


When I hit the ground I knew instantly that there was something wrong. I wasn't sure what it was, all I knew was that I had hurt my leg and I started screaming.


I was only wearing a pair of jeans and  a pair of skate shoes (not very good protective gear for motorbike riding) and all I remember was ripping my leg out from under the bike by the knee of my jeans.


Everyone rushed over to make sure that I was ok and one of my friends jumped over the top of me and told me not to look at it.


He told me that I had broken my leg, but I didn't want to believe him.


Everyone started screaming out to the owners of the property to call an ambulance. That's when I knew that it was bad.


It was the worst pain that I have ever felt and the worst part was that I had to lay there for over half an hour waiting for an ambulance.


One of my mates tried to help take my mind off the pain by making wise cracks and jokes. It worked and I gave it right back to him.


When the ambulance finally got there, they gave me a big green whistle to suck on, to help relieve some of the pain and then gave me 10ml of morphine. 


After waiting for about ten minutes, they gave me another 10ml of morphine, waited ten more minutes and told me that they were about to straighten my leg, that had been bent at roughly a 45 degree angle.


I'm not sure, but I think that pain was worse than actually breaking my leg!


Once they had straightened my leg, they put me on a stretcher and put me in the ambulance.


They first took me to Bathurst hospital, where a friend of mine that lives in Bathurst met me to give me a toiletry bag that she'd prepared for me when she heard about the accident.


After being stuck waiting in a hospital bed for about half an hour and having an interview with the police, I was told that they would now need to transfer me to Orange hospital, as they didn't have the facilities there to be able to perform the operation that I needed.


Once I'd reached the hospital at Orange, I needed to wait for my operation. It had now been about four hours since I'd broken my leg.


During the operation, the surgeons had to insert a steel rod in my leg that goes from my knee to my ankle, one bolt in my knee and two in my ankle.


I now make sure that I never go riding without wearing proper motorbike boots!


Lela xx