An Irish cyclist based in Spain has said she was in "excruciating pain" for several hours after a rescue effort - including being airlifted to hospital - was needed when a tree branch impaled her thigh during a crash at the weekend. However, she was still determined to get back on her bike and return to race action
Sally McHugh, a former member of UCD Cycling Club, said she could not speak highly enough of the rescuers who came to her aid in hilly terrain in Girona. However, the rescue operation was complicated and took several hours, during which time the branch was stuck in her leg.
"It was a pretty horrendous couple of hours, to be honest," she told stickybottle. "I was in excruciating pain, I've never really felt anything like it."
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McHugh eventually underwent surgery and when the branch was removed, the medics gave it to her as a souvenir. "It's shaped like a nail, it's very sharp at the top so it was very easy to penetrate the hamstring area where there's a lot of soft tissue," she said.
McHugh (30) is from Wicklow Town and is a financial controller in the cryptocurrency sector. She has been based in Girona since 2020, taking up mountain biking there about three years ago.
On Sunday morning she took to the trails on her own and just over an hour into her ride, while going down a single track, she came off her bike. Though traveling at a modest speed, on what was a technical trail, she landed on the ground and soon realised something wasn't right.
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"I either landed on a branch or it stuck through me on the way down," she said. "The branch went through my lower quad area just above the knee, at the hamstring.
"I realised very quickly that I couldn't sit up because my leg was fixed in a bent position. I looked at my leg and it was hard to tell what was actually coming out of it. When I looked at it, I completely freaked out thinking 'what is that coming out of my leg'… I didn't know what it was. I was thinking it could be a branch, it could be a tendon.
"Half the branch snapped when it went into me and the other half stayed in. I called a friend who lived locally and then I called the ambulance service… They're able to locate you via GPS when you call them here.
"When they came, there was about eight search and rescue personnel plus a helicopter. But it was a super windy day so the helicopter wasn't able to access the trail where I was. It took them about two hours to get me off the single track to a gravel path and then into the helicopter."
Though that wait to be taken to hospital was painful, ultimately she was lucky as the branch does not appear to have caused any long-term damage to her tendons and didn't cut any blood vessels.
McHugh said she had to be patient until the stitches could be removed and had to change the dressings on her wounds very regularly. While she was attending her doctor in Girona, her brother was also a doctor and "keeping tabs".
"I'm on quite a few antibiotics and a lot of pain relief as well," she said. "It could be a quick recovery. I'm hoping that's the case so I can get back into it, and get back to a few races and local events. Girona is the best, it's a great place to be for cycling."
