Où est l’hôpital?

It has been an amazing week or so in Les Arcs mountain biking, my riding has improved loads and yesterday I was getting PB’s on Strava left right and centre feeling faster than ever before and loving every minute of it.

Today wasn’t so good, rode down Black 8 with Mary and coming out of a corner at Mach 10 my right foot caught in something on the trail while me and the bike carried on.

I knew instantly it was bad, and when I looked and saw my foot was on backwards I knew it was really bad. I tried to reset what I thought was a dislocated ankle at the trailside and by the time Mary got to me I had it almost in place. We tried to make our own way out off the mountain as I crawled towards the van James had brought as close as he could. Unfortunately, it fell out of place again and that was it, agony and not going anywhere.

Mary called the emergency services and the fire brigade came and stabilised the ankle and amazingly drove me out in the Land Rover despite there being no trail or road and just a load of stumps and trees and rocks. Got me to the waiting ambulance and I was taken to Bourg St Maurice hospital.

The staff have been amazing and they gave me a load of morphine and tried to reset the ankle. It wouldn’t stay in place as the ligaments are torn. So they put it in a cast to hold it in place.

X-Ray and MRI scan later and in the words of the doctor ‘everything is completely broken’. I’m now awaiting an operation to fix the ligaments and plate the bones. Hopefully, that happens tomorrow, but I might have to wait till Friday. Today has been a struggle through gritted teeth.

Massive thanks to Mary and James for helping out, and for bringing me some snacks and a small beer! Also huge thanks to the pompiers de sécurité for getting me off the mountain and all the staff at Bourg St Maurice hospital for looking afterwards.

Going to be a while till I’m back at full fitness, but happy to be in safe hands! Life’s full of ups and downs!