Rib Injuries?

[ricki]

This is a heads up and a question. I dinged a rib this weekend after an involuntary "kiter loop" followed by a kiteloop. I think my spreader bar had become slightly loose over several hours of riding. My mistake in not stopping to tighten it. I think if it were snugged into place it would never go up that high to be able to hit a rib. It was a Fusion seat harness, my third one over the years.

I started to ask around and come to find rib fractures and other injuries aren't that uncommon apparently. Neil has a nice bump on his ribs, Chris just broke his recently and Kent estimates it to be one of the more common injuries out there. Have other folks suffered dinged or broken ribs from spreader bars, if so, how? The dynamics may differ from seat to waist harnesses as well.

Spreader bar pads may help, keeping your harness tight enough should help as well. What have folks experienced out there?

[Oliver B]

I was just in the keys competing and fractured two ribs on a huge double back roll kiteloop the only reason they broke was because i landed in less than a half foot of water. Having spotted the landing i thought i had it in the bag but soon enough i was over rotating with nothing but sand and a bit of water in front of me. This was the first trick in the last heat of the comp and i felt that this was not an injury that should hinder my participation in the competition of the comp so i continued to ride just as hard making it tot he front page of the Key West Citizen! The fourth day after i broke i was in the extreme boardercross and that was the worst day out of all. Every time i jumped over a banana boat i could feel the rib moving with the harness and the up wind tack was brutal.

It sucks to have a broken rib because the harness is right there pressing and contorting the rest of the ribs on every tack/jump/ride so my recommendation to you all is do not try big tricks in shallow water even if it might look cool and don't ride on it after you know its broken. But if you do break it at least you know that its twice as strong if it heals correct!!

I still had a great time in the comp and i would have done everything the same given another chance. Check out this like its a e copy of the Key west Citizen This was the last trick of the comp and i had a broken rib.

http://www.thekitehouse.com/pdf/KWC_TFP.pdf

[ricki]

Hello Oliver,

It was good to meet you and glad you had a great comp in Key West and are healing well. It is sometimes hard to resist boosting moves over too shallow water particularly in the Keys. Still, some guys don't bounce back all that well from some injuries. I am collecting info on spreader bar injuries and in some cases healing is slow in coming. Then there are the spinal injury cases which can be far more impacting and lasting, enough said.

Paul just sent me the press release so the write up on your event is coming. Looking forward to next year already.

Other spreader bar injuries out there? I am learning that these are fairly common and perhaps the means of avoiding them may not be that hard to achieve.