After a wet night (internally) in the Paddler's Return bar at Anglesey Outdoors, with Dave Blake and few others, we decided a surfing session at Rhosneigr was in order for Sunday.
Just ten minutes into the session, Mike was hit by another Sea kayaker, resulting in a very nasty cut from his neck out along his jaw bone. Basically when I got to Mike, which wasn't easy as he was in the breaking surf zone, he had a huge flap of skin hanging down, which strangely wasn’t bleeding too badly! Well not when compared to the slightest nick when you shave.
After visits to two N. Wales A&E hospitals (Bangor didn’t have the expertise to stitch him up), Mike cheerfully told us he had had 42 stitches. Even more worrying, and we had been discussing this just after packing Mike off to hospital, the cut was only 8mm from his jugular! Needless to say, after mike left on his hospital search, we were all a bit shaken.
We did go back out, as Mike had said don’t stop because of him, but I don’t think we were really in to it, with us stopping about an hour afterwards. At least I got home in good time and was able to talk to Mike on the phone later. He was very cheerful, but I suspect the anaesthetic hadn’t fully worn off. That cut was going to throb a bit!
