I'd like to offer my thanks to a couple of guys down at Woodies on Sunday. VB MAN and milehigh - great work guys.

I had an accident on landing where the kite fell unexpedly into the power zone. I was on the beach, not in the water, and when I got lifted off my feet, I pulled the safety pin, but it was jammed. It's a brand new chicken loop which I bought last Saturday so maybe it was just a bit stiff. I got dragged along a bit, still pulling the pin, or trying to unhook, neither of which worked, then did a few cartwheels on my head which bled a bit. Only once the kite and me were in the water did the tension decrese enough that I could get the release pin out. By then my arm was in ****loads of pain, but my mate robbo helped bring in my kite and carry both lots of gear back to the car. He found the other two guys in the car park who carried me by my harness back over the dunes to the car park near the jetty and gave me some painkillers.

When I got to hospital (I was complaining to Rob about every corner) it turned out my shoulder had popped out. I had a few shots of morphene for the pain, then a general anaesthetic (which I don't remember) and while I was out of it they pushed my shoulder back in. It still hurts a lot to move my arm, but at least I can walk around and sit up OK.

Once again, cheers guys. I owe you one.

hey g-dog hope you're back on the water soon!

would like to know what type of safety you were using?

i had a similar experience a couple of seasons ago where i couldn't release the "pin". see my post www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1436 . i don't have a lot of confidence in these systems working reliably under extreme loads

Read your previous post Airhead. Yep, that's what happened to me.

I have the factory standard Airush red tab and pin system. The chicken loop was brand new (picked it up a week ago) as I wanted a camel dick (don't we all ) because I was getting sick of the standard loop falling out all the time. I suppose this time, having it fall out would have been handy. Under the extreme load I couldn't manually unhook anyway, so I was relying on the pin, which proved to be unreliable when it counts.

I'm thinking maybe I should start looking into better bar and safety systems.

sorry to hear about your shoulder dude, dislocations really suck, i popped mine surfing and it was stuck out and had to get it put back in at the hospital. i would seriously recomend that you see an orthopedic surgeon and get an mri done, not saying you need an op but i one on the other shoulder 5 years ago because it kept dislocating and its good as new. with my latest one the public surgeon said i woulnt need an op but i wasnt confident that it would be any good, so i found my surgeon from before and he sent me straight down to get an mri and that revealled a huge tear in the capsule. had to have an op and now are recovering. if you want i can give you my surgeons name and numder and chat a bit more about it.

good luck
cheers wayne

Hi g-dog

I think the problem with pin releases is they do work , but it it seems that the higher the load the more critical the direction of pull is . As you would have realised as you were cartwheeling through the air it is very difficult to be precise about anything at that point .
I have seen the new Airush releases and they work very well and don't rely on directional of pull , in fact if you were to get dragged along the beach , on the chickenloop , there is a good chance it will self release .

The most important thing is to be familiar with your safety and check it often .

Good luck with the recovery .

Regards
Mike

quote:

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Originally posted by g-dog

Read your previous post Airhead. Yep, that's what happened to me.

...I'm thinking maybe I should start looking into better bar and safety systems.

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I now use a genuine Wichard shackle as a backup to my regular chicken loop safety so if that fails I can release the Wichard and say bye bye to the whole lot. It is totally "old" school as i can't do unhooked but that (old) sums it up nicely for me

hey no worries g-dog...hope you're back on the water soon.

cheers

steve

That was a nasty day, I got flogged by a freak gust on the south side and ended up dumping the whole lot when I slammed my noggin into the sand. Still getting sand out of my hair! Was a **** day, especially when I had to swim in after the wind dropped to nothing! Only 1 hr later!

Hope the shoulder is ok. Shows that those gusty days can be really tricky! Gotta be extra careful on freaky wind days - you need lots of room for error!

Hey everyone. Thanks for the kind words.

Vert, I went to Murdoch hospital A&E and they gave me an immediate referral to one of their orthopdic surgeons who is taking a look on Wednesday.

Not sure what I'm going to do about the pin release, and from reading other people's experiences I've lost all confidence in that particular system. I suppose I've got plenty of time to think about what i'm going to get (and save up for it). I did test my new chicken loop less than a week ago - I got someone to pull on the bar while I was hooked in and pulled the tab and I fell on my butt just as expected. It works in showroom conditions, but not in real life. I imagine the only real test would be mid kite loop. Or maybe that should be mid loop, while upside down under water with a bump on the head and a broken arm.

Now that I'm off the water for a while, my biggest problem now is that I can't tie my shoelaces. I hope they'll let me wear thongs to the office.

Cheers everyone.

Any time Doggy Dude. But lets all hope there isn't another time.
Hope you're all good and well for hiking down in Tassie next week.
(One word of advice. Watch out for poor rellies, rellies. You'll know them when you see them they all look like him).

Hi G-Dog
Very sad to hear about your accident. It can happen so fast can't it. But I'm sure we'll be seeing you down at Leighton again this season mate. Look forwatd to catching up with you again.
Graeme

Just an update on the details of what happened, if anyone's interested, cos I was surprised as hell to learn about this...

I went into work today where I spoke to Rob, and the scary part is that he can remember a lot more of what happened on the beach than I can. I have no memory of getting lifted, dropped 3m or getting dragged along on my butt, or apparently steering the kite towards the water.

I can only remember the kite suddenly jerk downwind as I brought it in to land and my immediate, but failed pull on the release tab, then cut to 3 seconds of what looked like the video from a camera mounted in a soccer ball after a good solid boot, and then sitting waist deep facing the kite and away from shore, finally getting the pin out after about 3 more tries and swearing like a florist about the pain in my arm. I just can't connect the three events, especially with the stuff he told me happened.

The only explanation is that I must have got knocked out while hooked into an out of control kite heading out to sea - fantastic!

Oh yeah, and work was OK with me wearing thongs.