I’m reasonably sure they won’t be reading but just an acknowledgment for the great job they did Saturday after our friend crashed quite spectacularly coming down Walton Hill in Clent.

I was further ahead but my other friend saw him cartwheel 30 feet or more down the hill ending upside down and unconscious in a bush…He came around but was in a lot of pain, hence paramedics and ultimately the Air Ambulance.

He’s got a fractured shoulder, two broken wrists (one requiring an operation) and a chipped bone in his neck. Without starting an unwanted debate, his helmet took a proper bashing with a 7″ x 5″ section being crushed down to about 20% of the usual thickness of polystyrene.

He’s still in Selly Oak with the operation due today but should be back home soon. Can’t say enough about how good the paramedic team and Air Ambulance crew were. There was also some good help from some Air Cadets hiking the hills, who stopped to lend a hand. Also a couple of local ladies went above and beyone the call of duty (no, not like that!) who helped the paramedic crew get to the scene and also offered to store my friends broken bike until we could collect it.

I wasn’t so impressed with the two mtbers, who slowed down just enough so as not to bunny hop my inert friend as they sped past….It was quite a fast section, but it was pretty obvious something serious had happened – would’ve been nice to have had at least a courtesy shout of “everything okay?”. Fortunately, they were the minority – other bikers did slow down or stop as did 95% of everyone else as we waited for help.

shit man, nasty – glad to hear he’ll pull through! 🙂

Hope he gets better soonm.

Where did it happen? I can’t think or anywhere overly fast at Walton you see!

were the passing mtbers on expensive bikes?

need to get my prejudices sorted thanks.

Sorry to hear about your friend, I wish him a speedy recovery.

Big-up to the emergency services, they do such sterling work picking up our pieces.

I suppose seeing a rider not moving very much upside down in a bush should alert even the dimmer witted to a potential problem…

I live at the bottom of Clent and and am up there very regularly. The Walton decent has become very fast indeed with the recent dry weather and consequently has increased the danger level. I was following a friend down there a couple of weeks ago when his rear tyre pinch flatted and lost all its air in an instant. He was taking a bend at the time, and it was his skill (& a dollop of luck) which made for a non event.

Cynic-Al, I wasn’t really paying attention to them – heard the familiar sound of hope hubs, so assume they weren’t on supermarket specials….

Lunge, it was towards the bottom of Walton Hill towards Walton Pool. I agree, nothing too fast or tricky, but he’s relatively inexperienced and I’m afraid he may have overdone it a bit with the speed and lost control. He couldn’t remember what happened, and the other guy following was also struggling to see how he did it.

Bonesetter, we’d got him out of the bushes at that time, but he was still lying by the side of the trail and it was blindingly obvious that something a bit nasty had happened. I wasn’t expecting them to stop, but would’ve thought they’d at least given a shout out to see if they could help or get help (we’d already sent two of the guys down to find the ambulance and walk them up to where we were, but they didn’t know that).

We’d already done the lions share of the ride in terms of effort. We’d ridden up from Redditch via the Lickey and Waseley Hills. Clent was the last stop before the pub beckoned…and a gentle pootle back via Fairfield/Bromsgrove – sods law.

It all sounds like a quite long affair. What with bringing the emergency services to the location and them presumably stretchering him down. Saturday was quite cold too.

What are your reflections on the whole thing now – no-one wants to prepare for anything like this, but is there anything you think should have, would do etc?

Hope he’s OK, sounds like one hell of a stack.

Other than that, tell him well done from me, if a job’s worth doing and all that. Good work. 😀

Can’t think of anything else we could have done to be honest. We made a quick assessment of him as best we could and got on the phone to the emergency services. Had grid references, but it was a long process until he got airlifted (2-3 hours). Two of us stayed with him, the other two went to track down the ambulance and get his (broken) bike to the bottom of the trail. The accident happened at about 12.20, he got airlifted just after 3.00pm… We got caught in the pretty nasty hail storm and all our spare clothing / jackets etc were keeping the patient warm so we were short sleeves and shorts. It was pretty freezing at that point, but at least I got to use the hand warmers that had been at the bottom of my camelbak since forever!

Straight to the pub (The Vine) after for a post mortem…and then the ride back before dark.

Trailmonkey, I’ll pass on your congratulations! 😉