Mistakes Were Made That Changed Everything

Mistakes are made all of the time, but sometimes those mistakes can cause great pain and suffering. I made plenty of mistakes coming up to the day that I would hit the ramp I had built. My dreams got the best of me and clouded my vision of what the possibilities could be like if I would end up in the hospital or still riding my bike to this day. The thing is we don’t think about these things when we want to do something so badly and the problem with that is when you go 100 miles an hour at something and not take a step back and look closely at the details something bad is bound to happen. The little mistakes that we make can add up to a huge mistake and while in the moment we won’t realize it’s happening until it’s too late.

I had an idea in my mind for what I wanted to do. I put in a lot of work to make things so they would work out just right. My main problem was that i didn’t pay attention to everything that I needed to.The ramp was huge, and over bearing to a point. The landing that I built wasn’t big enough and I said it will be fine when really it wasn’t going to be. The gap in between the ramp and the landing was over 40 feet and the lip of the ramp stood at almost 8 feet tall and 14 feet long. The run-up to the ramp was not perfect at all when it should’ve been. Another mistake that I made was that my bike wasn’t dialed in and this caused it to bog while I was hitting the ramp. I didn’t think about how all of these factors could affect me making the gap or coming up short. when it became time to finally hit it I had to shove down my fear and spike my courage. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I didn’t think of the consequences but every rider knows that a wreck is bound to happen at any point. I speed checked the ramp probably 20 times before I made my decision, a decision that would change my life as I knew it forever. The decision was the best and the worst at the same time. This is because when I was flying through the air it was one of the best feelings in the world but as soon as I realized I wasn’t going to make it I panicked and froze. That was another mistake that I made because I probably would’ve been better off bailing. I stayed on the bike and hit the back of the landing and that’s when my life changed. The impact shattered my ankle, the bottom of my tib/fib, and part of my heel bone. Instantly there was severe nerve damage and I was in excruciating pain. That is when I knew I had made a huge mistake.

The hospital visit was 3 days longer than it should’ve been but me not thinking about the possibilities or knowing exactly what I was doing. I was sent into surgery for two hours and came out with 5 screws holding everything together in my ankle. The surgeon told me that he almost had to cut off my foot because the damage was so bad that he almost couldn’t fix it. And this was all the beginning of a long road. My advice to everyone is to think about every little thing that could happen because if you don’t the mistake that you made could be one of the hardest things in your life to overcome.