The Crash

Well I am sure that most have heard by now that yesterday morning I was involved in a head on collision in the eight with a single sculler. Fortunately, both of us managed to escape with minor injuries. It happened on the Nepean River in Penrith, 5 kilometres up from where we boat at the Nepean Rowing Club. It is a familiar landmark for rowers, a place called 'The Narrows'. Basically, it is a 30 metre stretch of water about 10 metres wide, allowing only one boat through at a time. However, when approaching The Narrows there is low vision for both crews and unfortunately by the time that we had realised that we were in trouble, it was only split seconds before the collision happened; too late to do anything.
Being a sport where you sit down and go backwards, when you are rowing along in your own zone, focused on your own crew, to be hit in the back mid-stroke is one of the most frightening experiences. Trying to explain the sensation, I refer back to a few months ago when the media were talking about the damage that king hits can do on a victim. The reason being that the victim of the king hit is unable to prepare the body for the hit and therefore can't prepare for the hit. This was the same with the collision. Most of the damage that is done, due to the fact that the body doesn't have the time to prepare itself. Similar to falling over face first without putting your hands out to break the fall.
My injury is only minor. I have bruising across my lower rib cage, with some fluid surrounding the side of the rib cage on my right side. It has only been 24 hours since the collision and the swelling has gone down substantially. I will visit the physio again to get another check up as he may be able to start working closer to the area affected.
For the moment, I am out of the boat for another day, fortunately we have a scheduled day off for tomorrow and then I hope to be back on the water by Thursday morning. Until then!