Disaster on Skates Stories

[therikkster]

What's the worst disaster/near-miss experience you've had on skates?

I was skating in the city, and while going around the opera house, I noticed a little set of wharfs, with concrete ramp leading down.

Or atleast, it /looked/ like concrete.

Half-way down, I realise that actually, it's wood. Wood painted to look black and cementy. Black painted, water slick wood. And that the wharf dosn't have a fence. A straight drop into the harbour. At night. In skates and jeans and pads.

I ended up throwing myself to the ground (Thank random fluctuations in the space time continuum for wrist pads) and crawling back up the ramp.

[3 feet]

take it you mean the sydney opera house? must be great to skate round a fantastic setting like that- only just started myself so no disasters , near or otherwise to report yet.

[Kennedy]

I am an indoor skater. I started my indoor skating as a quad speed person, then I progressed to inlines as they came on to the market.

Well, a bunch of us decided to go outdooring with our inlines. Being a speed skater, I felt compelled to play in traffic since I could easily keep up. But being an indoor skater, I had been sheltered from such things as hills, gravel and other obstacles, so I had no idea to look out for that kind of stuff and how to deal with it.

I was cruising with traffic and I decided to go from the street to the sidewalk. There was an opening between some parked cars that I went for. I failed to notice the huge grease / oil spot on the pavement where cars usually park. As soon as I hit the spot, my skates instantly went out from underneath me. I smacked the pavement pretty hard and my momentum wedged me underneath a parked car. I had no safety gear on. Luckily I suffered only minor scuffs and scrapes.

I got back up and endured several minutes of ridicule and harassment from my friends. So I got back up and took off in the other direction leaving them in the dust. As I was blasting up the street, there was a set of railroad tracks that I had to cross. I decided to jump them. Of course, a plain old jump wouldn't be sufficient, I had to regain my ego from my crash a few minutes ago. So, I pulled a picture perfect boneless 360 over the tracks. As I was halfway through my revolution, I noticed there was a cop following me, and he was not happy about us skating on his streets. He chirped his siren as soon as I landed. I thought he was giving me some sort of positive attention, so I took off on a full sprint. I passed a few cars on a double yellow. The cop ended up pulling me over. He yelled and screamed and threatened to give me all sorts of tickets and to impound my skates. He let me go, but I had to walk back to my car 2 miles away in my socks.

That was the beginning and end of my outdoor career, well then end for a while. :evilgrin:

[ballardthedome]

Skating in Florida during a trip down there about 15 years ago. My first time skating in that area and I had forgotten to grab my wrist guards (uh oh).

Skating down a sidewalk, moving pretty good because it was downhill (maybe 22mph). Saw a little patch of dust in the sidewalk ahead of me, didn't look like anything much at all, so just kept going. Unfortunately for me, the sidewalk had sunk (two plates of the sidewalk had both fallen at an end making a shallow V) and that patch of dust was actually about two inches of sand filling in that shallow V.

My wheels hit that sand and completely stopped. The rest of me kept going. I learned how important your hands are the next week or so. Road rash on your palms is NOT fun.

BDA

[Demolishun]

This would be a near miss.

I used to go down hills all over Salt Lake City. I had someone clock me on a very smooth road at about 40mph. I thought I was hot stuff when it came to speed. I just had cheap roller blades with four wheels. So, I decided to try a very large hill at the outside of Little Cottonwood Canyon. The hill was very long and steep and the limit was 50mph.

I had someone go ahead of me to pick me when I got down the hill. I had brand new wheels and bearings. I always wore pads, but bicycle pads are not made for the speeds I was about to attain.

I started down the hill and everything seemed okay. Then the speed really picked up. My left skate started vibrating wildly and there was no way to slow down. I had to put most of my weight on left skate to keep it stable. I can only guess at the speed I went. I am guessing more than 50mph because nobody passed me (or was even close) until I was starting to slow down where the road leveled out.

After that episode I knew I needed much better skates, and I needed motorcycle equipment to protect myself if I was going to continue skating at those speeds. I decided I would rather stay at slower speeds. It is cheaper anyway. I still love a speed rush, but better equipment is a must. There is a hill up here in Idaho I have been eyeing. We shall see...

[NWGlenn]

Originally Posted by Demolishun

... I still love a speed rush, but better equipment is a must. There is a hill up here in Idaho I have been eyeing. We shall see...

I understand the CdA Trail East out of Plummer is that sort. 'Never got to that end of the trail myself. Try this link though:

http://www.maryhillfestivalofspeed.com/indexPop.html

It's in the middle of Wash. state; looks like it's for serious speed freaks.

Glenn

[Demolishun]

Oooh, oooh, oooh!
"Closed to traffic" is really cool!!!

That is a neat stretch!

[Demolishun]

Here is another story about my sister:

When I was 15 or so I got a new pair of rollerblades (cheap knockoff) and so did my sister (11 at the time). I started practicing on the sidewalk in front of our house. I got pretty good about going down the inclined portion of the sidewalk that came from the house to the main sidewalk that was perpendicular. If you did not make the turn you ended up in grass, then street (or car if parked in street). I could do it either direction.

Well, my sister decided to try. She went down the incline, froze, and continued over the grass right into the parked truck. That, ladies and gentlemen, ended my sister's skating career. I don't think she ever wore them again. Maybe not a physical disaster, but a disaster as she never wants to skate again. It didn't do any real damage, but just made her afraid to skate.

To me this is just sad as I love skating.

[therikkster]

Originally Posted by 3 feet

take it you mean the sydney opera house? must be great to skate round a fantastic setting like that- only just started myself so no disasters , near or otherwise to report yet.

It is pretty neat- The ground is nice and flat down under where the bars are, as long as you coast and make sure to smile, AND DON'T CRASH INTO THE WAITRESSES, you can hang out listening to live music.

I tend to do it at night- The crowds are low, but friendly, theres plenty of little inclines, and well lit.

[sk8scott]

Originally Posted by ballardthedome

Skating down a sidewalk, moving pretty good because it was downhill (maybe 22mph). Saw a little patch of dust in the sidewalk ahead of me, didn't look like anything much at all, so just kept going. Unfortunately for me, the sidewalk had sunk (two plates of the sidewalk had both fallen at an end making a shallow V) and that patch of dust was actually about two inches of sand filling in that shallow V.

Ha! I had a similar spill in VA Beach a few years ago. Came speeding around a corner on a slight downhill slope, and saw what looked like a patch of concrete across the asphalt ahead. Right before I hit it, I realized that it was wet sand. Skates stopped, Scott didn't. Wrist guards did their job, but I picked up a fair amount of road rash in a few other places.

----Scott

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by ballardthedome

about two inches of sand

Living in a coastal area, I honestly can’t count the number of times I’ve gone down under similar circumstances. I have to replace my knee pads annually, but I’ve gotten pretty good at skidding on my right knee and popping back up.

My funniest skatastrophe would be this incident from the Big Apple Roll this summer:

Times Square on a Friday night. Need I say more? This skate was rather slow, owing to covering a lot of high traffic areas at a high traffic time. Got a few good runs in, though. One of them was an excellent reminder that smooth pavement can go crappy at any moment, and if you’re running flat out, you can get flattened out.

I ended up doing one of my signature Sliding Knee Grinds™where I skid for a while on one knee and one hand then pop back up with most of my momentum and pride intact. In this case it was the right knee and right wristguard for a good thirty feet. Only problem was the the toe of my skate was also sliding. Oops. I’d already wounded the leather in a few spots previously, but this time I ground right through the carbon. About ten minutes later somebody rolled up and next to me and asked where I got the Bonts. I tried for a moment to remember where, since I’d gotten a really good deal, then remembered it was Back Street Inline. He said “Yeah, I know. I’m Paul.” Then proceeded to tell me how to patch them up. One of the many times fortune smiled upon me this weekend.

Yeah, I’m lame; still haven’t patched them up. The toe of my right boot is still wrapped in the same black duct tape I put on them in the hotel room later that night. I like to pretend it gives me “street cred,” whatever the hell that is. But deep down, I know better.

[MANY_SkatingDave]

Hi Therikkster,

Originally Posted by therikkster

What's the worst disaster/near-miss experience you've had on skates?

I was skating in the city, and while going around the opera house, I noticed a little set of wharfs, with concrete ramp leading down.

Or atleast, it /looked/ like concrete.

Half-way down, I realise that actually, it's wood. Wood painted to look black and cementy. Black painted, water slick wood. And that the wharf dosn't have a fence. A straight drop into the harbour. At night. In skates and jeans and pads.

I ended up throwing myself to the ground (Thank random fluctuations in the space time continuum for wrist pads) and crawling back up the ramp.

I have had many, yet I am trying to reduce them.

The last one, 2 weeks ago, was a fluke and I went down on my tail bone. I finally have recovered and feel no re-occurent posterior tenderness.

I think the one before was in-doors, and came at me from out of the blue. I went down on both arms on some object on the floor and splayed out flat forward on the floor.

Oh Well the time continuum is preserved.


Yours in Skating, MA/NY Dave

[MANY_SkatingDave]

Hi Kennedy,

Originally Posted by Kennedy

I am an indoor skater. I started my indoor skating as a quad speed person, then I progressed to inlines as they came on to the market.

Well, a bunch of us decided to go outdooring with our inlines. Being a speed skater, I felt compelled to play in traffic since I could easily keep up. But being an indoor skater, I had been sheltered from such things as hills, gravel and other obstacles, so I had no idea to look out for that kind of stuff and how to deal with it.

I was cruising with traffic and I decided to go from the street to the sidewalk. There was an opening between some parked cars that I went for. I failed to notice the huge grease / oil spot on the pavement where cars usually park. As soon as I hit the spot, my skates instantly went out from underneath me. I smacked the pavement pretty hard and my momentum wedged me underneath a parked car. I had no safety gear on. Luckily I suffered only minor scuffs and scrapes.

I got back up and endured several minutes of ridicule and harassment from my friends. So I got back up and took off in the other direction leaving them in the dust. As I was blasting up the street, there was a set of railroad tracks that I had to cross. I decided to jump them. Of course, a plain old jump wouldn't be sufficient, I had to regain my ego from my crash a few minutes ago. So, I pulled a picture perfect boneless 360 over the tracks. As I was halfway through my revolution, I noticed there was a cop following me, and he was not happy about us skating on his streets. He chirped his siren as soon as I landed. I thought he was giving me some sort of positive attention, so I took off on a full sprint. I passed a few cars on a double yellow. The cop ended up pulling me over. He yelled and screamed and threatened to give me all sorts of tickets and to impound my skates. He let me go, but I had to walk back to my car 2 miles away in my socks.

That was the beginning and end of my outdoor career, well then end for a while. :evilgrin:

A great story of a youth's ability
and his eventual decline/maturity as he gets older and looks back..

I love the 360 spin over the tracks. It was WOW!

Yours in Skating, MA/NY Dave

[To1ne]

When I was about 12 years old and on a camp (at the Belgium coast) with friends, we went for a skate at a small park (just a pit preserved for skaters).
I'm always slowly moving my limits, but my friends dared more. So they were going downhill from the little ramp that was coming from road level into the pit (2m high and 5m long).
So I decided to try it myself. I went up to half the ramp, and I did go for it. But I hadn't see that at the end of the ramp, there was a little cleft from to ramp to the tarmac. And when I came on the tarmac I lost my balance and fell on my but. This didn't feel good, I had some rash on my but and I did sleep bad that night.
Afterwards I promised myself to never skate again. But now, about 10 years later I'm enjoying my speedskates...

[Boo]

How about 9 weeks ago? I was just skating a session... junior high girl decided she needed to talk on her cell phone while skating. I was trying to get around her: she managed to catch me at the perfect (or not so perfect for me) time- I was on one foot, and she managed to kick my foot out from under me, I landed on my knee, and slid on my shin... The last scabs have finally come off of my nice 7 x 4 inch rink rash. (and yes, it was basically down to muscle) And this was on a bare wood floor (has never seen a coat of roll-on).

Last year, while skating at a private fund raiser at the Saint Louis Zoo, (it was a 70's theme, and a derby league I was involved with was paid to skate as entertainment!) some friends & i decided to go up the hill to see the big cats. However, we did not think about how to get back DOWN the hill. As the rest of the group inched their way down on toe stops, I decided to just tuck & go! Unfortunately, directly at the bottom of the hill was where the party-goers were decked out in heels & suits, totally oblivious to the 200+ lb skater headed directly for them. At the next-to-last second, I hooked a sharp left and headed up a different trail- that was composed of bridges with almost 1/2 pipes between them. After the third bridge, I totally lost my balance and pulled a superman- flying into the grass on the side of the trail. What a rush!

[Calisk8r]

Back in May 2001 I was session skating with my daughter. I was skating backwards and hit something with my wheel and started to go down. I twisted around and landed on my left hand. I thought I had just sprained my wrist so I finished out the session. The next day the lower portion of my upper arm was completely black so my wife convinced me to go to the hospital. X-rays showed that I had fractured my radius about an inch forward of the elbow as well as the scaffoid bone in my wrist. I ended up being in a cast for five months. Only serious skating injury I have had in nearly 40 years of skating

[cooljoeohio84]

A couple years ago I was skating at a rink in PA and a game of tag on roller skates was being played where the floorguards chase your around with stuffed animals and attempt to hit you with them, if you get hit, your out. I was flying around the floor running from a freind that worked there who was attempting to tag me out. I was heading towards the far end wall when a young child fell right in front of me. I could not get out of his way and I hit him and plunged myself full force into the wall. It was like going from 50 to zero in a car in like 2 seconds, ouch!!! To this day I still have a scar on my arm and my right side of my body hurts from time to time after exercising. Oh, and as for the kid, he managed to crawl off the floor crying his eyes out and eventually got up and seemed to be ok, ouch again!!!

[ncsk8rgirl]

when I first made the transition from quad to inline thinking hey, if I am great at one, I will be equally great at the other.. they are all on wheels, RIGHT? I took my spiffy new bont 5-wheels to the oudoor loop that I would frequent on my quads. The loop is not flat by an means.... it is a solid workout - 1.6 miles of gradual incline with about 15% of the loop being downhill.

well... I started on the top half heading to the big downhill when I realized that I had NO CLUE about inlines. At the bottom of the hill there is a sharp 100 deg left turn.. needless to say I ended up in the grass next to pine tree I was lucky enough to WALK back to my car without serious injury.

[verona42]

For me it had to be about a 6 months after I started skating. Picture this if you will...

Having gotten my stuff together and feeling all cocky I headed down a very shallow hill when out of a side alley i'd never even noticed (error #1: lack of awareness) come four or five ladies wearing full Burkhas (read 'reduced perihpheral vision' for all those who haven't come across this before). In my effort to avoid any accidents I loudly stated 'skater passing on your left', to which the ladies in question kindly stepped out of the way to reveal a car pulling out which wasn't there 2 seconds before (error #2: lack of forethought). Cue the Starsky and Hutch bonnet slide and one irate driver. But wait...

...I turn my head to apologise and say i'm coming back and then bang, I got veeeeery personal with a lampost (error #3: just being a complete fool). How I got away from all that with just a bruised body and a deflated ego I do not know but thank the lord I learnt my lesson there and then!

[amaranthe]

The year hubby and I took inline lessons, we were feeling pretty good about ourselves, and went out to a nearby park to skate. This particular park was lovely, with nice smooth paths -- and hills, sharp turns and a pond. On this particular day, it was also full of children. Of note is the fact that my stopping was (and sadly, still is) indifferent at best. Also of note is that this was the first time I'd skated in shorts. We'd gone winding around the paths up and down around the pond a few times, and were starting to feel pretty good about it. My third time down and around, I was coming down a particular hill that ends in a sharp turn in one direction -- and the pond in the other. As I approached the midpoint at a rather good speed (for me), a small child trundled out from the other direction, leaving me the choice of hit the child or go into the pond. I must have been pretty startled, because while I was pondering those choices, my feet went shooting out from under me and I hit the ground with my backside before I knew what was happening. My husband saw the whole thing, and he swears I bounced so high on the asphalt that he saw six inches of air beneath me. Of course, what goes up comes down -- again -- and I had a road rash like you would not BELIEVE where my shorts rode up. A day or two later, I was kind of proud of my first 'strawberry', but at the time -- ow...!