Getting Air Again, Against All Odds - Video

May 2, 2018 at 22:25
by Peter Jamison  
Views: 21,220    Faves: 35    Comments: 2





bigquotesThis is my house, I live in Colchester, Connecticut. Lindsey had come here previously a few times to ride my pumptrack and so we chose this place for the jump because it was familiar. All the friends are comfortable here, everyone's been here, and we decided to build a huge jump and teach Lindsey how to jump her new bike, it was awesome!Tim Cameron, Trail Builder

Photo by Peter Jamison Media peterjamisonmedia.com
Photo by Peter Jamison Media peterjamisonmedia.com
Tim going full send

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Dirt was thrown and laughs were had as the Skull Mountain Jump neared completion. Aaron Chase and Tim Cameron oversaw the entire building process

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Fires, barbecue, and dirt...is there anything more you need in life?

Photo by Peter Jamison Media peterjamisonmedia.com
No Helmet, No Ride




bigquotes“To be honest, I didn’t know Lindsey super well at first. She was introduced to the crew by Wayne and we were riding together. When she had her accident it was devastating. It brought us as a crew so much closer together. At the hospital, I visited her a couple times at the Hospital and the boys were there every single chance they had. The person she has become out of this accident is amazing and so is the community that has been brought together”Whitney Poulin, Friend

Photo by Peter Jamison Media peterjamisonmedia.com
Photo by Peter Jamison Media peterjamisonmedia.com
Members of the "Highland Family" from all over the east coast congregated in support of Lindsey

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Members of the crew hiking up for yet another of what seemed to be an endless amount of laps

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No shortage of high fives throughout the day

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Future shredders in training

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High fives and good times were had by all



bigquotesLindsey's attitude from the very beginning and the positivity she had, not to say it's not hard and that there are not dark times, but, there is this overriding positive and wave of motivation in her that only seemed to get stronger and strongerMike Kirtley, Founder of Amateur Cooperative

Photo by Peter Jamison Media peterjamisonmedia.com
Getting Ready to drop

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Photo by Mike Kirtley
Catching some fresh air


Author Info:
peterjamo4 avatar

Member since Nov 28, 2012
56 articles

41 Comments
  • 75 1
 God damn ninjas chopping onions
  • 3 1
 I know, they are everywhere!
  • 3 1
 No onions here but daaaaayaaaam my house is dusty!
  • 1 0
 I got something in my eye! People are awesome, this is great on so many levels!
  • 29 2
 Most epic PB post of the week right there, mad respect!
  • 18 1
 That’s awesome
  • 13 1
 Big shout out to the family members, friends and community that are there to support this tremendously spirited young woman and the things that she has and will again achieve in her life time, and go on to inspire others from all walks of life. Kudos to you Lindsey for not giving up on yourself, the biggest and most important part of your life will require just that and paitence from here on in. Stay strong, stay focused there will be days when you will think it's impossible and maybe feel that way too, let it go not at goals are meant to be reached some serve as a mere motivation. Believe in yourself no matter what anybody says or thinks about you Lindsey, for ultimately your greatness will silence them all. Peace and Love, Lindsey 1armbandit
  • 10 0
 I have read two stories recentl about two women who have had life changing injuries from mountain biking.

There seems to be more and more people getting injured, or is this just because the internet makes it easier to find out above these things?

I have had a few near misses and probably countless others where I was on the edge of getting badly hurt.

Do you guys think that modern bikes make it so easy to ride fast compared to say bikes 10years ago, that when things go wrong, they go wrong, the speed, height etc is so much higher, therefore injuries are worse?

It goes without saying that its amazing to see this girl has such a positive attitude.
  • 9 0
 It would be an interesting exercise to sift through data to find this out... as I was thinking the same when I found out that one of the guys who used to work at my LBS is now a paraplegic.

Just found this with a bit of googling, a study in the late 90's...

www.mountainbike.co.nz/politics/articles/anstiss/chapter2.html#4

Need to find some comparative numbers from recent years.....

From a sheer injury volume perspective this is interesting
"Last year there were 825 claims for mountain biking injuries in the Rotorua district, costing more than $1.2 million. That's almost four times the number of claims five years ago, when just 214 were logged."
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11747564

So is it 4x as many people in the forest, or 2x people on more capable bikes with less talent, or trails getting gnarlier... or...
  • 8 0
 ..... and today I learned the ACC (the governing body that manages/pays out on accidents in New Zealand) has a statistics explorer tool.

www.acc.co.nz/about-us/statistics

So I selected "Back/Spine, Neck, Back Of Head Vertebrae", all causes, mountainbiking only, all of NZ. The number of new claims in YE June 2013 was 913, vs 1279 YE June 2017. Which given how much (anecdotally) Mountain Biking has increased in popularity doesn't sound like a massive hike in claims. However the total cost has doubled going from $2mil to $4mil.....
  • 5 0
 @RowanH: Neat little tool there, which really helps dive into the statistics. I was curious about how the numbers of MTB related back/spine and neck,back of head vertebrae compared to those in skiing, and they are quite similar in terms of numbers.

I think one thing we've gotta be careful of is pushing people into the most dangerous end of the sport too quickly, IE downhill.
  • 8 1
 Everyone is pushing the boundary these days. Bikes get faster, gaps get bigger and trails become faster. And people do this with minimal protection, you can see people doing jumps in XC/trail lids only.

I think the pro's and pinkbike should be better at promoting the use of adequate protection. Even if it's not the "cool" thing to do.
  • 3 0
 @PHeller: What would be interesting is to get an average hours doing sport per capita to really get a sense of the numbers, as the ACC numbers only say "of the people that screwed up here's the impact". Need the input side of it to say "here's the number of people doing it and average hours per week".

There are some other very interesting sports. For instance Horse Riding - that's nearly double the yearly cost of mountain biking and it's always my goto example when people hassle me about the danger of mountain biking. YE June 2017 was $7.3mil in payouts (as opposed to $4m for the same back/neck classification) You've got to think that horse riding is not even close to as popular as mountain biking (we think riding bikes is expensive...wait till you the costs for horses )

One way to look at it, MTB'ing total cost $15mm last year... Horse Riding $20mm. So Horse Riding has a higher proportion of back/neck claims than MTBing. Which isn't really surprising.

So that got me to thinking, has the %age difference of 'the serious parts' of your body changed. So I pulled out Head/Neck/Back as opposed to total claims. Over a 5 year period it's gone up slightly. Hard to read into it as I assume the cost is total ongoing cost (which would include the likes of compensation while people are on ACC).

MTBing
YE, $ Total, $ for serious bits, %age of total ongoing cost
2012, $7,005,486 ($2,379,982), 29%
2017, $15,540,188 ($4,973,456), 31%

Interesting stuff... would be worth a study on it.

There was an article floating around when the Christchurch bike park opened that caused a stir in NZ as the doctors likened riders coming in as the same as motor vehicle accidents :
---
"Emergency services doctor, Dominic Fleischer says the injuries coming from the park are serious.

"Those injuries we are seeing are those you would typically see from a high-speed motor crash, broken ribs, punctured lungs, to tear through your spleen a high velocity injury. They're fairly full impact injuries," he says.

www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2017/02/concerns-raised-over-injury-rate-at-new-christchurch-bike-park.html
----

As far as me personally I caution people getting into it "just take your time, build up, because when it goes pear shaped.." and then I show them the picture of my thigh hematoma I had last year...
  • 3 0
 Id say it's a mix of things;

For people that are new to the game: Bikes are far better than 10 years ago to the point it's almost not even the same sport - they are much, much easier to go fast on. They are also definitely safer, but since you feel fine doing 20kph vs say 10kph on a rigid steel hard tail, you just crash at a higher speed.

For people that have been riding for a while: Progression is pretty hectic nowadays, I remember the first Crankworx, where a backflip and a tail whip where cutting edge, now they are just a filler move for awkward jumps before Nicoli Cash roll tail whips something.
Same in Enduro, XC, DH ect ect the bar is being pushed up higher every day (which is great don't get me wrong) and it mostly shows in the Groms, like Goldstone, who are better riders than 99.99% of adults already.

Also Strava probably has a hand in it.

I've had full speed/send crashes where I should have ended up in hospital and gotten away with a scraped knee, and crashes in the car park that have put me out for weeks.
  • 1 0
 @RowanH: I take the ACC statistics with a grain of salt. You and I know you get much higher discounts for treatment if you can claim it was an accident - so a lot of people with chronic back injuries will claim 'I fell off my bike and wrenched my back' to get subsidized treatment.
  • 2 0
 @StackingItSince1991: Agreed.

That said after my comments I'd done some further digging and saw the Concussion + Brain Injury category went from 85 to 143 (new claims) with active claims going from 104 to 196. That's a big yearly jump jump in that category. It could either be due to better awareness or more happening, or a combination of both...

That's not generally a category (I imagine ?) that has a high %age of 'twas an accident' categories - given you have to diagnose a concussion / brain injury...
  • 1 0
 I think it’s rad that you guys are all thinking and looking into this phenomenon.

My two cents: rider population has grown so more injuries are reported due to a higher volume of people. And the progression of the sport has skyrocketed so people are going bigger and badder each and every day and freak accidents happen to even the best riders.

I bet if you examined other action sports (moto, skiing, snowboarding) you’d probably see a rise in injuries in those as well. It’s the nature of this lovely beast we adrenaline chasers can’t get enough of!

For me personally, I sent something that was out of my skill level and happened to land so totally wrong. Oops! I thought if I can hit an 8 foot drop, why not a 10 or a 12 or a 15.... little too confident or self competitive haha.
  • 1 0
 Probably a combination of all of the above. More people riding, more social media, plus better bikes and faster trails.
  • 8 0
 Aw thanks everyone! This was definitely the most rad weekend I’ve had since my injury!

So worth noting that I may live the best life given my situation but I would be absolutely nowhere without my friends, family (blood and dirt), and the MTB community! My dirt family not only rallied to build me the sickest jump but spent every day with me in the hospital when I was first injured. That was such a game changer and kept me from every letting myself see the negative side of what had happened. I can say with almost 110% certainty that I would not be the positive, happy as f*ck lady that I am today if I didn’t have the greatest friends and the best community/sport behind me.

I couldn’t thank the people involved in this weekend and edit more. They are he inspiring ones... I just like to send it ????
  • 9 0
 Awesome vid, way to send it!!!
  • 4 0
 These are great people doing great things. Last year she pulled off a rad Highfives event at Thunder mt. She raised a bunch of loot to help the organization. Together, they help get people back out there after serious injuries. I watched her inspire young, old, injured and non injured to get out there and enjoy. So many cool people and companies donated to the event, signed helmets and jerseys from the top. If you are a rider, don't miss the next one and if you are a company, send the support. Her stoke is both inspirational and contagious! Highfive to you Lindsey
  • 2 0
 So inspirational! You have my utmost respect and support, Lindsey! Keep on trucking, nothing will be able to stop you achieving whatever you desire in life. So good seeing the strength and positivity of the mtb community too.
  • 4 0
 I actually said "Yeeeewww!" to my computer when she sent it. Now my face is all wet from crying.
  • 3 0
 Oh my, heart strings. What an amazing human with amazing people around her. I need to have a better outlook on life like she does. So positive.
  • 4 0
 Lindsey, I hope you're coming back to Thunder Mountain this year, I missed you at the High Fives event in 2017!
  • 1 0
 I will definitely be back at Thunder this year!! Feel free to message me on here or on instagram and let me know when you’ll be there and I’ll see if I can make it there the same weekend so we can shred! I need to work on my Hawleywood laps!!!

Also, the Ride for Fives event will be back this year. We don’t have a set date yet but it should be relatively close to the same as last year (we just have to coordinate with the race schedules around here so we don’t step on anybody’s toes or take away from their weekends!!)
  • 2 0
 Great stuff, and food for thought. www.bakadesuyo.com/2011/11/who-is-happier-lottery-winners-or-paralyzed-a
It ain't what ya own that makes ya happy said the ol' gray mare to mah great grandpappy.
  • 3 0
 I think I talked to her at Thunder mountain a couple years ago. They were shooting a video up there. I asked her if I could rig her trike, she just laughed.. Pretty awesome..
  • 1 0
 *tears* so moving and inspiring, i still ride and push myself for people like this, my best friend almost lost his life last year due to an AVM stroke. He may not be able to ride with me now, but he has the same determined spirit Lindsey has. That strength is so incredible to me, i have to be so grateful for my physical health, and live for them as they would most certainly be doing if the unthinkable did not happen
  • 4 0
 congrats from quadriplegic, sis!
  • 3 0
 Hell yea. Respect. Cya up at highland this year!!
  • 3 0
 What. A. Badass. And a community of wonderful badasses supporting her!
  • 2 0
 Best thing I've seen this year. So damn cool to see and inspirational as hell. Keep it up!
  • 3 0
 Such a nice girl. Smile
  • 1 0
 LOVED seeing this...and the people that made this possible..
  • 1 0
 Hell yeah, always a good idea to #sendit Kudos!
  • 1 0
 So much respect , well done .
  • 1 0
 you're amazing!!!
  • 1 0
 This is so rad Linds!
  • 1 0
 Awesome crew)
  • 1 0
 Major respect







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