NANCY’S
GREAT
ADVENTURE
This posting is a week late, for that I apologize.
Last Friday, the 13th by the way, Nancy, our next door neighbor John, and I went up onto Stukel Mountain for a short, late, afternoon ride.
We left our neighborhood approximately 4:45 and were on the mountain, ready to go riding, about 5:00. Our first destination, as this was Nancy’s first Stukel ride, was to the summit. It was a beautiful day and we could see forever! This being Nancy’s second major ride she was doing great handling her ATV, and was having the time of her life riding.
We left the summit and rode back into the great central valley that travers' the mountain about 700 feet below the highest peak. From the central valley we traversed yet another ridge and back down into another parallel valley. This new valley is filled with a great meadow with knee high grass and mostly wet lands. Numerous waterfowl, deer, and cattle nest and graze in the meadow.
Now the adventure begins: So far the trip has been slow, easy, and idyllic. After leaving the meadow, we circled around yet another ridge, over another, around another, and finally finding ourselves on the opposite side of the mountain, from whence we started. Just at the last stop, from where I had planned for us to return, there was an, off camber, right hand turn. Nancy was traveling too fast as she entered this turn, lost control of her ATV, and crashed, head on, into a large Juniper tree!
The tree won the encounter! Nancy was launched over the handle bars of the ATV, into the tree, glancing off the tree and into the center of the roadway. Both John and I got back to her at the same time, as she was getting up onto her feet again. Her first words were, “I’m OK”, “I’m sorry for ruining the trip”, “Is my Quad OK?”
Upon closer examination: she had three major bumps on her head, a hank of hair hanging from one of the tree’s limbs, her neck hurt, her back hurt, and her pant leg on the inside of her right thigh was wet. She wiggled all her limbs, walked in a circle, twisted her back and neck around, and seemed to not be seriously injured or incapacitated. Upon closer examination of her wet pant leg it was determined the wetness was not blood! She lowered her pants to expose the area and found she had an 8 inch long gash across the inside of her thigh. It was gaped open about an inch and quite deep, maybe an inch or so. Surprisingly she had no pain or blood loss. We got out our first aid kit and, she, bandaged up her own thigh, and said, "let’s get out of here and get me to the Emergency Room!"
Her ATV was not damaged at all, we got it restarted for her and we all started back for the trucks! Ten miles and 45 minutes later we made it back to the truck; she made it all the way with only a couple of rest stops, and no complaining; except that she was going to miss out on more riding trips for the next few weeks.
We arrived at the Emergency Room at 9:00 in the evening; she walked in, under her own power, while I parked the truck, trailer and the ATV’s. We were both total filthy with dirt; we looked a site!
The emergency room immediately put her into a neck brace and sent her up for X-Ray and CAT scans that proved to show no new injuries to her neck or back. She did aggravate some older injuries, that still give her some pain. Last, but not least, they sewed up her enormous gash with 13 stitches. The nurse took too long to return to bandage up her thigh; so Nancy did it herself and was sitting there ready to go home when she finally did come in to bandage her. The Staff got a kick out of that; as well as that every time someone asked her if she was going to continue riding the ATV she answered: “I sure am", "I was having the time of my life just before the crash”!
Nancy wants to go out next week end to the Klamath River Gorge and ride down the southern side to the Frain Ranch for a picnic.
Three cheers for Nancy; she’s one tough lady!
