Unforseen circumstances

After visiting Casares on Saturday, we headed to Olvera on Sunday, to another free overnight stop.  There also happens to be another Via Verde there, part of which we intended to ride with Powell before heading to the other end of it at Puerto Serrano and doing the same.  Unfortunately fate intervened.

We set off on a leisurely ride, taking in the beautiful views along the way.  At around the 5km mark, I decided to let Powell off the bike lead.  He’s a good boy generally speaking and although he does have a tendency to follow his nose, he doesn’t run away and he was, as I expected, happy to run alongside or slightly up ahead.

All was going swimmingly until I spotted the cattle grid at around the 8km point.  Then Powell spotted the cattle grid.  Powell hates cattle grids.  Try as we might, to get him to tippy toe over them, he point blank refuses to cross them, so every time we see one, we have to carry him over.  When Powell sees a cattle grid, he stops, dead.  Pete didn’t see the cattle grid.  I have to point out here to anyone asking why I didn’t shout out, that I saw the cattle grid about a second before Powell stopped and at that point everything kind of went into slow motion.  As Powell was up ahead at the time, Pete braked as hard as he could to avoid hitting Powell.  Good brakes are usually a good thing...but this time, the front brakes were too good and he went head and hands first over the handle bars – imagine Superman taking a nose dive and you wouldn’t be far off, and landed on the other side of the cattle grid to where he’d started.  Minor panic (from me) ensued.  Thankfully he got up but had managed to cut his eye, scrape his cheek, bash his knee and cause some kind of damage to his wrist, as well as bruising the other hand.  Add this to the adrenalin pumping through him and he looked quite a sorry state.  After trying to wipe the blood from his eye so he could see, we trudged the 8km back to Dora.  A couple of very nice guys asked if we needed help en route back, one of whom furnished us with details of a medical centre a few kms away.  It turns out there were no doctors in Olvera; typical.  An hr and a half later, we arrived back at Dora and managed to suss out that the nearest hospital was actually in Ronda, some 30 odd kms away.  By this time, it was after 8pm and Pete was in a lot of pain and found he was unable to move his hand at all without extreme discomfort in his wrist.  As I’m not legally allowed to drive Dora (too heavy for my licence), the only option we had was for Pete to drive or for him to get a taxi.  I tried, but failed to get a taxi for him as the taxi driver hung up on me.  I can only imagine it was either my terrible Spanish or the thought of having to drive to Ronda on a Sunday evening that put him off...I’d like to think it was probably the latter.  I think Pete was pleased and disappointed at the same time.  A taxi would have cost a fortune and he was loathe to leave me alone in an aire, with no way of getting to Ronda after him.  Resigned to the fact that he wasn’t going to get to a hospital any time that evening, he dosed up with painkillers while we discussed our plan for the next day, with me hoping that his situation would improve and Pete hoping that he was just being a wuss and that he’d just sprained it.

Morning came, along with the realisation that Pete’s wrist had not improved and if anything, had probably got worse.  The only thing for it was to go to Ronda.  Pete very bravely (some might say stupidly, but we had little choice) drove to Ronda and parked us in a campsite, before we headed off in a taxi to the hospital.  After a bit of aimless wandering, we managed to ascertain the whereabouts of A&E and with some sign language and garbled Spanglish, got Pete registered at reception.  After an hour or so in the waiting room, the triage nurse called his name.  One look from the nurse  and ‘es roto’ is all she said...exactly what we had hoped wasn’t the case, but really already knew  – ‘it’s broken’.  A couple of x-rays confirmed that it was definitely fractured and to top it off, he’d made such a good job of it, he needed surgery to fix it.  They plastered it temporarily, manipulating it into a position that didn’t irritate the fracture more than necessary.  Pete looked a bit green after they’d finished, not surprisingly.  Then we had to go back to reception to call our insurance company to ensure that we were covered for the surgery.  A phone call from our insurance company to the hospital, reminding them that we have EHICs (despite us already having presented Pete’s card on our arrival!), was thankfully enough for them to agree to proceed.  As it’s a public hospital and the treatment was necessary and as a result of an accident, it shouldn’t cost us...but we will see when he gets discharged.

Waiting for manipulation...

So Pete is now in hospital.  They admitted him yesterday in the hope of operating this morning.  Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, they couldn’t get it done today so he’s due to go in tomorrow morning, after which time he will have a small steel plate in his wrist, holding some of it together!

Smiley Pete, post plaster, pre op

It’ll be something we laugh about eventually; he’s really very lucky not to have done more damage to himself; and for that I’m relieved.  But it’s rubbish for him being in the hospital, bored stupid and with a huge language barrier so he can’t even have a proper conversation.  It’s also pretty rubbish for me and poor Powell hasn’t a clue what’s going on, but it is what it is and it will all be fine.  We’re keeping fingers crossed that he’ll be out tomorrow and ‘home’ for New Year, but I won’t hold my breath.

We will be in Ronda for a while I think, as he’ll need follow up appointments for removal of his stitches etc and he’s also going to be unable to drive for a few weeks.  Luckily we’re in a lovely campsite, and Carmen, the manager has been an absolute star!  My only gripe about this place is the weather; it s quite literally freezing at night.  We’ll be dying for some warmth and beach life by the time we’re done here - good job we’ve got plenty of time on our hands!