Hunting Date = Hospital Trip

Monday was supposed to be a day out in the bush for Matt and I without children.  A date day.  A day out doing what we love: hunting and quadding.

Two and a half hours into our date day, things went downhill.... Matt and the quad specifically. 

We were quadding up behind Eleanor Lake; the turn off is less than 20km from town.  We parked the truck and trailer in a pullout along the highway and headed in.  The trail is really good and then gets boggy in parts, but we spend a lot of time quadding and have quadded through much worse.

Just over 10 miles in, Matt was trying to go up a small hill, but the ruts combined with the crappy tires on his quad meant he had to back down and go around.  At the top of the hill he went to drive back onto the trail, but it was a bad angle and the front right tire dropped down and Matt had to jump off.  Normally you would jump off on the uphill side of your quad, but it lurched so hard he had to come off that side.  He was trying to jump away from the quad, but ended up falling downhill from it right as the quad started rolling towards him.

The quad did almost an entire roll before it landed on him.  We are very, very lucky in how it all happened.  He got his left foot up in front of his chest right where the skid plate (the hard underside) of our quad was about to come down and crush him.  Instead, he got his foot on the skid plate and pushed the quad to keep the momentum going and get it off of him.  The weight of the quad (about 800lbs), pushed his foot backwards way too far, but it saved him from much worse damage.  The quad continued to do two more rolls and almost hit my quad.  It landed wheels up, still running and only a bit of damage.

I was at the bottom of the hill and watched it all play out.  When the quad landed on Matt's foot he let out a horrific scream/yell and then he was quiet.  I was jumping off my quad, running around his rolling quad and trying to see if he was even still alive.  Thank God it was just his foot.  I was nearly in tears and he was almost instantly back to his usual smart-ass self.  On the way out he stops me to say that if I see a moose on the way out that I should still shoot it! 

I got his quad fixed up by tearing off the broken windscreen, getting the gun strapped back on, and the whole thing turned around on the trail.  The rest of the quad looks to be in a pretty good shape considering.  Not sure about the gun yet.  Matt hobbled over to his quad, got on, and we headed back out.

Now, on the way in we had to winch through some holes.  This meant winching back through on the way out.  Matt got to sit nicely on his quad while I did the hard work.  Good thing I know how to operate everything and am comfortable with quadding through mud holes!

The accident happened at 9:30am and we were in the Faro Health Centre at 11am.  There he had xrays that were inconclusive, so by 12:30pm we were on our way to the Whitehorse hospital. 

We left the boys with good friends who also went out to load up our quads and trailer that we just left on the side of the road.  Thank goodness for the amazing friends we have that took care of our kids and pets while we dealt with Matt's accident!

In Whitehorse he had more xrays and was then told we needed to come back in the morning for a CT scan since they still couldn't see any breaks.  At this point they thought he had a Lisfranc dislocation which would have resulted in us flying to Vancouver for surgery.  The next morning he had his CT scan (I ditched him at the hospital to fend for himself while I went shopping for some new clothes and got a snazzy new hair cut- gotta make good use of a trip to the big city!) they discovered there were at least four fractured bones in his foot.  But since his foot was still extremely swollen they sent us home.  We will head back to Whitehorse in a week for more xrays, a check with the surgeon to see if any pins or screws need to be put in, and then finally a cast.  Right now he is hobbling around in a air cast and crutches.

It was a crazy, stressful two days.  But we made it through with a lot of humour between ourselves and our friends.  We realize how lucky we are that it is just a foot.  Matt is pretty upset that he will miss out on a lot this fall such as hunting, hauling wood, and the yard work he wanted to do this year.  But all of that means nothing considering he is still alive.  Friends have offered to help out whenever we need it and we are so blessed to have people like that in our lives.

Having fun before the accident!  Matt just had to try going through this hole.

Happy!  Kid free time in the busy!

Still happy!  Kid free time in the health centre!

And still grinning!

The boot didn't survive the day!

Still happy and kid free in the Whitehorse hospital!  The lengths we go to for a date with no kids.

50 shades of purple.

Hard to see in the picture, but his foot is extremely swollen and bruised.

But it could have been a hell of a lot worse. (sign I saw at the Faro Health Centre)

Now I just need to find a way to keep myself from beating him with his own crutch as he sits around the house irritating me all day.  He is off work for the next two weeks and I am sure his only mission is to drive me nuts!