About Hamilton's fracture

[Derk]

Since there was some discussion about it in this forum:

According to a journalist I heard yesterday on a TOUR dF TV program,
Hamilton has a "green stick fracture". My wife, who works in a hospital,
explained the details of it to me and I quickly forgot most of it rather
fast :-)

It seems to happen mostly to children and is compared to a twig that you
break with your hands: the parts don't get seperated.

Maybe someone else is better informed about this fracture than I am?

Greets, Derk

[Tom Paterson]

>From: (Paul Southworth)

>For Tyler, aside from dealing with the pain, I think his main problem
>is risk of falling again before it's healed, which could be a real
>disaster (snip)

I might have read it wrong but that seems to be the gist of the Roche
sentiment, that Tyler is taking a serious risk he shouldn't be taking. --Tom
Paterson

[David L. Johnson]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 04:30:18 +0000, Tom Paterson wrote:

> I might have read it wrong but that seems to be the gist of the Roche
> sentiment, that Tyler is taking a serious risk he shouldn't be taking.

If Hamilton ends up on the podium in Paris, I doubt that he will have
thought the risk was too great.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | Some people used to claim that, if enough monkeys sat in front
_`\(,_ | of enough typewriters and typed long enough, eventually one of
(_)/ (_) | them would reproduce the collected works of Shakespeare. The
internet has proven this not to be the case.

[patch70]

A greenstick fracture is generally reserved for children whose bones are
still hardening. Thus their bones can (with sufficient force) bend like
a green piece of wood and get cracked but not all the way through the
width of the bone.

Tyler had a double hairline fracture in an inverted 'V' shape. As the
pieces of bone were not displaced at all, his clavicle was not unstable.
Thus it was possible for him to ride but with a lot of pain. Yes he's
taking painkillers but they won't help too much and all the strongest
ones are banned for professional sportspeople. He is one tough (or
crazy?) cyclist.



--
>--------------------------<
Posted via cyclingforums.com
http://www.cyclingforums.com

[Robin Hubert]

"James Annan" > wrote in message
om...
> (Paul Southworth) wrote in message
>...
>
> > For Tyler, aside from dealing with the pain, I think his main problem
> > is risk of falling again before it's healed, which could be a real
> > disaster and would make him look like a fool for racing on it.
>
> Why? What could he possibly do worse than break it? A broken
> collarbone is hardly a career-threatening injury, as countless
> cyclists have shown.

Because you and Tyler have some very important and large vessels and nerves
running diretly beneath the clavicle. A fall on an already compromised bone
might cause it to break and and possibly damage any of those structures.



--
Robin Hubert >

[Jay Beattie]

"patch70" > wrote in message
...
> A greenstick fracture is generally reserved for children whose bones
are
> still hardening. Thus their bones can (with sufficient force) bend
like
> a green piece of wood and get cracked but not all the way through the
> width of the bone.
>
> Tyler had a double hairline fracture in an inverted 'V' shape. As the
> pieces of bone were not displaced at all, his clavicle was not
unstable.
> Thus it was possible for him to ride but with a lot of pain. Yes he's
> taking painkillers but they won't help too much and all the strongest
> ones are banned for professional sportspeople. He is one tough (or
> crazy?) cyclist.

I was thinking that it could be more of a problem for other riders
because pain pills tend to slow your reflexes and dull your attention --
at least the opioids I have taken had that effect. Not a good thing in a
tight pack or on a twisting descent. -- Jay Beattie.

[Paul Southworth]

In article >,
James Annan > wrote:
(Paul Southworth) wrote in message >...
>
>> For Tyler, aside from dealing with the pain, I think his main problem
>> is risk of falling again before it's healed, which could be a real
>> disaster and would make him look like a fool for racing on it.
>
>Why? What could he possibly do worse than break it? A broken
>collarbone is hardly a career-threatening injury, as countless
>cyclists have shown.

From what I've heard, his collarbone is not separated and not broken
through, only cracked. If he fell on it, there's a good chance it
would separate and he might be having it screwed together. Furthermore
sometimes people break a collarbone and find that it doesn't knit
back together easily or quickly. In his current condition I predict
he will heal up easily without surgery or other complications - no
guarantee of that if he falls again.

I agree it is not a career-threatening injury, and I'm not calling
him stupid for riding the tour, just pointing out that if he really
bashed it good he'd probably regret the decision.

[Phil Brown]

>I was thinking that it could be more of a problem for other riders
>because pain pills tend to slow your reflexes and dull your attention --
>at least the opioids I have taken had that effect. Not a good thing in a
>tight pack or on a twisting descent. -- Jay Beattie.

Aspirin or an equivilent is the strongest he's allowed to take.
Phil Brown

[Derk]

I read in the evening paper that the French Tour doctor (dr G. Porte) said
the clavicula had 2 cracks: 1 from last years Giro and 1 from his fall this
year.

Speaking about falls: I read Armstrong's TREK's chainstay broke when he
fell. That didn't look like a serious enough fall to break a carbon
chainstay I would say. Strange.....

Greets, Derk

[Raptor]

Derk wrote:
> I read in the evening paper that the French Tour doctor (dr G. Porte) said
> the clavicula had 2 cracks: 1 from last years Giro and 1 from his fall this
> year.
>
> Speaking about falls: I read Armstrong's TREK's chainstay broke when he
> fell. That didn't look like a serious enough fall to break a carbon
> chainstay I would say. Strange.....
>
> Greets, Derk

Iban Mayo rode over the back of LANCE's bike while falling.

--
--
Lynn Wallace http://www.xmission.com/~lawall
"I'm not proud. We really haven't done everything we could to protect
our customers. Our products just aren't engineered for security."
--Microsoft VP in charge of Windows OS Development, Brian Valentine.

[James Annan]

Paul Southworth wrote:

> From what I've heard, his collarbone is not separated and not broken
> through, only cracked. If he fell on it, there's a good chance it
> would separate and he might be having it screwed together. Furthermore
> sometimes people break a collarbone and find that it doesn't knit
> back together easily or quickly. In his current condition I predict
> he will heal up easily without surgery or other complications - no
> guarantee of that if he falls again.
>
> I agree it is not a career-threatening injury, and I'm not calling
> him stupid for riding the tour, just pointing out that if he really
> bashed it good he'd probably regret the decision.

So there seems to be a small risk that by continuing riding, he might
end up with a worse injury that would take a few months rather than
weeks to heal. If the tour is the most important event to him, then I
still don't see how that makes it sensible to give up on this major
event, just to slightly reduce the risk of missing out on some more
minor stuff over the next couple of months.

James

[Paul Southworth]

In article >,
James Annan > wrote:
>So there seems to be a small risk that by continuing riding, he might
>end up with a worse injury that would take a few months rather than
>weeks to heal. If the tour is the most important event to him, then I
>still don't see how that makes it sensible to give up on this major
>event, just to slightly reduce the risk of missing out on some more
>minor stuff over the next couple of months.

What's better for him, 5th or 6th in the Tour or 1st in the Vuelta?

But it's his life, this is just his choice, he wants to ride.

--Paul