I Never Saw That Coming!
Mad Dogs But No Englishmen
"Whenever you are depressed because things aren't going as well as you wished, just remember this; Things could suddenly get a whole lot worse!"
Buddy Hall, 2021
I'm giving myself credit for the above quote - but the way these things go, many people have been saying things for a great many years, so someone else may have said it first - if so, let me know.
We are (actually,"were" is now the proper word) all set to depart in 5 days to commence the Northern Tier east to west. It was a gorgeous day in Tulsa, 70-ish degrees farenheit, and I was out for a 35 mile ride. I had to cut it short. WARNING; the 2 pics at the bottom of this post contain some blood and gore - if you are very squeamish regarding such, you do NOT want to look - I'm giving you warning now so you can carefully scroll and just read the text if you wish.
I've ridden this route at least several hundred times - out past the waterfall at Pretty Water Lake, then back through suburban areas and industrial parks to my house. Occasionally a loose dog will come out and bark, maybe follow me just a bit as it defends it's territory. But, holy cow, this was different.
The 2 dogs appeared from my right side, and they were excessively aggressive from the onset, snapping at me as I rode away and zig-zagged to avoid them. One was a yellow lab, fully grown - the other was about the same size but had a bulldog-like head. These were big dogs, and they weren't happy with me. I thought they would drop off after a few blocks, but I was wrong - they chased me, galloped alongside me at 12-15 mph as I negotiated some rolling hills, and occasionally one of them would make a foray attempting to get me. I tried to slow and let them get ahead - no good, they just came at me. I tried to yell at them and shoo them off - these 2 weren't buying it. This went on for a full mile - I was utterly amazed that they could maintain the pace - as it turns out, these guys weren't in their right mind. One ran directly in front of me at times and I had to swerve to avoid him. I had pepper spray with me - I carefully waited and gave one of them a full blast right in the face from only 3 feet away - it didn't even faze him.
These guys were mad dogs - rabid - their brains were suffering and they didn't respond to normal stimuli - they will die soon if they haven't already. Heading up a steeper hill, the beasts caught me. One sank his fangs into my left leg just below the knee, and the other ripped my ankle down low. They pulled me over and I veered and crashed off the left side of the road. I rose quickly ready for a life/death fight, but the mutts had moved on about 20 feet away from me. However, when I got up they came back and they were determined to rip me to pieces and end me. One was on my right and the other was on my left, snarling and lunging at me with ferocious intent - in their eyes you could see their malicious madness - these dogs had devolved to a primal state. I was swinging my bicycle around to keep each of them at bay - even with the adrenalin pumping I could tell I was in a losing situation as one of them would eventually lunge past the swinging bike. I had passed a utility worker in a pickup parked beside the road a block prior - he saw my predicament and drove up and got out and the beasts retreated.
One of the beasts had a lot of saliva coming out the rear of his mouth - I'm not certain if we would say that he was "foaming" at the mouth, but it was abnormal. They trotted on behind an abandoned house and off into the woods. I called 911 and got the Sheriff's office and they said a deputy would be headed my way - I was hoping he could shoot the beasts so they could be tested for rabies. But he wasn't there 15 minutes later, and I was bleeding enough that I needed to get home - I was only about 6 miles from home and it was mostly flat to get there. At the time, I only saw the damage that had been done below my knee - the adrenalin was pumping so hard that I didn't notice the laceration behind my ankle that was hidden by my sock - if I had then I would have accepted the 911 operator's offer to send an ambulance. Without further ado, behold the damage - WARNING, Bloody Content;
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While I was riding home, my wife was calling to find out the best place to go for a possible rabies infection. As it turns out, at least in Oklahoma, the Urgent Care centers are not staffed with rabies shots - they require refrigeration/special storage, and you must go to a hospital ER to get treated. And so I did. They gave me a tetanus booster in 1 arm, rabies shot in the other, and injected each puncture site with a rabies antibiotic - that last part stung a bit. Some of the punctures below the knee were big enough that the ER doc would normally have stitched them closed, but she said she didn't want to do that because it would possibly close in some infection, so they were left open. The laceration behind my ankle was way too big to leave open, so it was stitched close. I have to report for 3 more rabies shots to get the complete 4-shot series; yesterday's shot was Day 0, and I will have shots on Day 3, Day 7, and Day 14.
As of this moment (1 day later), I can barely walk without crutches - obviously I will have to heal up enough to be able to walk and bike before we leave. The muscle along the back of my leg is incredibly sore - I think the muscle was tore a bit where the beast ripped me - it's very painful when I try to pull my toes toward my knee, and I can only walk by shuffling along without bending my ankle much. But this is just 1 day after the trauma, and today and tomorrow should be the worst days - maybe in a few days I will be much better - but for the moment, I just don't know. I'm on a heavy dosage of antibiotic for the next 7 days, and it will mess with my digestive system - so I'm not going anywhere for the next week anyway. My stitches can come out in 10-14 days, I could remove them somewhere along the way so that isn't a show-stopper. All things considered, as of this moment, I just don't know when we will depart but there's definitely going to be some delay; there's not much use in getting to the start if I can't ride a bike!
Gee whiz, I almost got my wish for a warrior's death before the tour even started! Stay safe out there; you never know when you may get attacked by an escaped gorilla or wild dogs or struck by a meteor or kidnapped by space aliens - I certainly didn't see it coming.
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