This Cyclist Impaled His Leg on His Bike in a Horrifying Race Crash
A thru axle lever pierced a cyclist’s leg in a grisly race crash on Sunday.
Colin Reuter had been racing in a category 3 crit when he was involved in a high-speed crash and fell on another rider’s bike.
The lever impaled his left leg, but didn’t hit anything vital. Reuter is expected to recover and should be able to ride again soon.
This story contains graphic imagery.
Last weekend, Colin Reuter learned the hard way what it’s like to have a piece of cycling equipment go through his leg.
Reuter, lead developer for BikeReg.com and president of the New England Bicycle Racing Association, was riding in the Lime Rock Cycling Grand Prix in Lakeville, Connecticut, on Sunday when he crashed at a high speed. The category 3 crit had been going smoothly until the last lap, when two racers in front of Reuter crossed wheels and one went down. Reuter couldn’t avoid the mix-up and fell as well, landing on the other rider’s Cannondale.
The force from the impact drove the bike’s thru axle lever into his left leg. Reuter realized something was wrong as soon as the immediate shock wore off. Managing to remain calm, he told the other riders in his group that he’d been injured. Footage from his bike camera, which kept recording, picked up audio from the aftermath.
“There’s a quick release inside my leg,” Reuter can be heard saying. “I need an ambulance.”
The lever had entered Reuter’s leg directly below the knee, forcing him to stay in a kneeling position so as not to remove it and risk bleeding out. (Another rider had also been injured, suffering a dislocated shoulder.)
“So I know we were all worried about disc brakes being unsafe, but can we talk about sharp thru axle levers?” Reuter later tweeted.
(In this case, the lever that pierced Reuter’s leg had a thin and pointed design, both for style and to reduce the bike’s overall weight. It’s not difficult to imagine that, with enough force, it could puncture the skin, though the chances of this type of injury are extremely rare.)
Reuter described his emotions in the moments after the crash as a mix of panic and focus. He tried to act as logically as he could, but his mind raced. “Are there arteries in my knee?” he recalled thinking. “Am I going to bleed to death?”
At least five other riders stopped to help steady Reuter as he continued to kneel awkwardly on the bike. He was still holding that position, and starting to shake from the effort, when the EMTs arrived.
Over the next several minutes, the riders explained how the thru axle lever worked, and how they could remove most of the bike while keeping the lever in Reuter’s leg. First the EMTs carefully flipped him over so he could lie on the ground. They considered cutting some of the bike away, but decided it wasn’t possible without hurting Reuter in the process.
Those moments on the side of the road wavered between intense and casual, Reuter said. Many on scene tried to help him stay calm and keep the situation light. “Did you sharpen your quick release?” one racer jokingly asked the Cannondale owner.
Someone realized the best approach was to remove the stem from the bike, which the other riders did as gently as they could. Then the EMTs put Reuter on a backboard, with him and the front wheel and stem just barely fitting into the ambulance. Reuter described the 45-minute ride to the hospital as the longest of his life.
When they arrived, the doctors and hospital staff were just as confused as the EMTs. Reuter, still impaled by the lever, tried to explain what had happened. No one there knew what a thru axle was, so they turned to Google.
While it was a bit surreal to be surrounded by medical professionals with their phones out, Reuter said, he understood their level of caution. “I really appreciated them trying to fully understand what they were dealing with first,” he said.
After taking X-rays, the doctors found that the lever hadn’t pierced anything vital. They also learned that the damage wouldn’t be permanent, and that Reuter would be able to ride again before too long.
Now all that’s left is to heal and rest. Reuter said his pain levels aren’t so bad, given the circumstances, and that ibuprofen is enough to get him through the day. He compared the feeling to a deep bruise, though he tries not to move his leg very much. Roughly the size of a nickel, the wound is still pretty fresh, but bandaged. Reuter changes the gauze frequently as the wound cleans itself.
“It turns out you can’t stitch a crater,” he said.
This also isn’t the end of Reuter’s racing career. He plans on doing more crits in the future, though he said he’ll stay extra alert to the possibility of getting injured.
“I don’t think it will deter me from racing,” he said. “I’ve gotten hurt before.”
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