Like many other kids my age, I was a cheeky lassie with a flare for contorting myself into different positions. It was a very child-like thing to do. The creepier, the better.
Think along the lines of the exorcist!
I loved squeezing myself into small spaces for the fun of it. It was my pride and joy! Until I trapped myself in the fridge. Pneumonia? I don’t know her.
Now we all did stupid stuff growing up! I once had to get a tetanus jab because I ran through a field of bougainvillaea flowers. Don’t laugh, this is a safe space for our years’ worth of embarrassing moments.
It’s a miracle that I didn’t die. I came out mostly unscathed. My soul sister Kelly Clarkson was right.
Not everybody is as lucky. On 3 December, a 14-year-old teenager from Oxford accidentally ‘degloved’ his manhood after crashing onto a car.
According to The Sun, the teenager has been cycling one-handed with a drink in the other when his bike lost control and crashed into a parked car. The handlebars impaled his groin.
Ouch?
Handlebars Had Sliced Through Pubic Area
The teenager was rushed to the Accident and Emergency Department.
Upon his arrival at the hospital, the doctors soon discovered that the handlebars had sliced through his pubic area. This left the boy with a 14 centimetre long wound across and a 10 centimetre cut down into his perineum.
That ought to hurt…
The impact had inverted his left scrotum and ripped away the skin of his penis – exposing muscle and bone.
The boy was put under general anaesthetic as the doctors removed the damaged tissue and washed the wound.
Peel banana, peel peel banana. No?
An Unusual Case
A professor of Paediatric Surgery at the University of Oxford, Dr Hannah Thompson shared that the teenager’s case was unusual “in both mechanism and resulting injury”.
She explained that handlebar injuries usually resulted in only blunt abdominal trauma. Records on impalement and degloving were rare.
“Most bicycle-associated injuries are skin abrasions. However, extensive morbidity has been described in association with bicycle injuries, especially handlebar injuries,” she explained.
She added that this was mostly because of the low surface of the bare metal end of the handlebar.
“This unusual case demonstrates the potential forces involved, and the potential damage resulting from handlebar injuries even at a low velocity.”
The doctors from the hospital were unable to predict if the following incident would affect the boy’s sexual function in the future. But one thing is for sure – that would leave a scar.
That was a very shudder-inducing piece of news and I can only hope that it doesn’t happen to anybody else. So folks, cover up those handlebars and cycle safely because…
And suffice to say, this advice goes to all PMD riders, too.
