And now, the Rest of the Story:
Heads up - the pictures linked here are a little graphic, hence I ask that you do not link them publicly on facebook, etc. Show whoever you want to, email them, we don't care, but it's not the kind of stuff everybody wants to see.
Pics:
http://imgur.com/a/M6kyc
About 5 miles from the end of Old Ore Road, I took the lead again, and we started off well enough. JQ1.0 was behind me, but not right on my tail as before, because the terrain was a bit rougher now (although nothing that should give either of us problems). We ride together a lot, and generally if he falls much behind, he hangs back a fair amount to stay out of the dust, and it's also a bit easier to read the terrain if you can watch the rider in front of you. So I didn't worry much when I didn't see him for a few corners.
Eventually, I stopped on a longer straight and I knew it was taking a bit longer for him to catch up than normal, so I killed the bike and didn't hear any engines behind me. Uh-oh - time to backtrack. It's not the first time I've done this, and the farther you backtrack the more worried you get, because it means that the group has been stopped for a long time, which usually indicates a more serious problem. I backtracked for a few minutes, and then here comes JQ1.0 around the corner. He signaled he was OK and I waved him by. When I turned around I noticed that his saddlebag had come loose, so when he stopped to let me lead, I pulled up next to him, re-strapped his bungee cord, and asked him what happened. He told me "some little old man jumped out in front of me with a stop sign, so we had to take a little pit stop". So on we go - I know the old man, so I figured he had fallen down, but you never know, it could have been a bathroom break.
About 15 minutes or so later we got to the pavement and went on into Rio Grande Village. I filled up my bike and parked it, then came back to the store and waited for the rest of the group. He steps out and asks me if I want anything to drink, so we pick out some drinks and walk out to the picnic tables. COPB8 tells me that he went down hard, but to this point, I assumed that it was a "no-harm, no-foul" kind of fall.
We get outside and he removes his safety pullover (it has holes in the pockets so that your thumbs can stick out - it would be unsafe to have cramps from your hands being bunched up in a pocket). Shortly after several other bikers start to notice that there appears to be an arm shaped lump of hamburger meat around where the forearm meets the elbow. Apparently he went down on a couple of rocks that have not been worn smooth yet, and those rocks had said hello to a couple of layers of muscle and maybe a little bone.
We have some of our drinks and discuss how bad the wound is. It definitely needs some intense cleaning, wrapping, etc., and probably would be better if we went to the hotel to do it "more" properly. However, some of the other riders pointed out that the ranger station just down the street probably had first aid providers on-site, so we first walked down there, as a professional could probably do it better than I can.
Unfortunately they don't have first aid in the RGV ranger station, but he pointed us to the Panther Junction visitor center. We walked back to the gas station and ran some bottled water over the wounds, wrapped them up, and rode over to Panther Junction. They didn't have anybody there either, but they had a guy about 5 minutes away, and after talking to him for a few minutes, he called in a lady that was another 5 minutes or so.
By this time, we've already figured out that finding an ER somewhere that we could get at least one of the two major lacerations stitched up would be the smart way to go. The rangers also emphasize that they very seriously recommend going to Alpine and getting checked out, as there was some dirt and gravel tucked up in the wound that they weren't able to irrigate out.
So we ride to the hotel, unhitch the trailer, and drive to Alpine, ending up at the Big Bend Regional Medical Center. All the staff was very helpful and seemed to know their stuff, and we were being treated within 5 minutes of arrival. These guys were a little more "aggressive" with their cleaning, and apparently the two lacerations were more serious than we thought.. The smaller looking wound extended appx. 2.5 inches under the skin, and a surgeon was called in to take a closer look to see what we'd need to do to get it cleaned and closed up. After she poked and prodded a bit (and propped the wound open with a couple of q-tips so she could see inside), we discovered that the elbow joint was visible in the wound. She then proceeded to insert her finger into JQ1.0's arm to feel of the joint and see if the bone was actually exposed or if it still had a thin covering. You can see from one of the pictures that the opening of the wound and subsequent probing MAY not have been as soothing and relaxing as it sounds. I was not able to get a picture of her finger 2.5 knuckles deep, but trust me, she didn't have small fingers.
Unfortunately she determined that the bone was likely exposed and we needed to see an orthopedic doctor in Odessa to eliminate chance of a bone infection. Up to this point, JQ1.0 was still planning on going back to Terlingua and either hanging out around town or doing some lower stress street rides on Saturday.
Being the redneck cheapskates that we are, we asked about me picking the bikes up in Terlingua and then driving JQ1.0 up to Odessa. They said that time was an issue as a bone infection is very bad once it gets started, and that he would be making the trip in an ambulance, and likely wouldn't be getting out until Monday or Tuesday.
So once we figured out what hospital they were sending us to, I called my mother and asked what she had been up to. When she said "not much", I said "I can fix that for you". She and my brother left for Odessa about the same time I headed back to Terlingua to load up the bikes. I got back to Terlingua about 11:00, and since my mother and brother were going to beat me to Odessa anyway, I stayed the night and had breakfast so that I could let a couple of people know that we were fine, and we didn't just disappear. By the way, when they said that time was an issue, they were not kidding. He got to Odessa somewhere around midnight, and he was out of surgery around 5AM. Not 100% sure on what was done, but I believe they just opened up the wound more so that they could do a better job cleaning all the contaminants out and making sure the bone/joint was OK.
JQ1.0 is doing fine, went back home Sunday actually, and will likely be back on a motorcycle before a doctor would let him pour his own milk in the morning.
So.. his armored jacket performed perfectly. The hotel bed on which it was resting was not harmed in any way. My brother and I also purchased some additional safety gear for him when we got his bike back to Graham: