So i went to Telluride this last week to visit my Brother! Had a great time! Went fishing,Camping,hiking,and just enjoying nature in general,it was beautiful this time of the year.
There is a little river by his house called the san miguel,Class 1 or 2 he said at the time.
It looked "very easy"! I have been wanting to try white water! We grabbed his boat and a buddys,off we went.
Put-in! a hundred yards later im swimming with a dislocated shoulder....Ouch!!!
Soo is class one to much for a first try?
My sea kayak is a 17 footer,I never fill out of control in what ever water in the Gulf!
This thing spun like a top!
Well i guess thats it for now!! My shoulder hurts!
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I was not in my Sea Kayak,i was in a borrowed white water boat...
Texans EOM.
dislocation
A fundamental whitewater concept is the “paddler’s box”. The “box” is defined by the space in front of the body plane of your trunk. The width of the bow extends well out to your sides and is determined by your shoulder width and to some extent, your arm length. You don’t want to get your hands outside of the “box”. If you need to place a hand behind your body plane, you do so by rotating your trunk and keeping your hand in the “box”.
If you hold your arm staight out to the side so that your hand is in line with, or slightly behind your body plane, and rigidly fix your trunk in that postion, it only takes about 12 pounds of pressure applied directly rearward to your hand to pop your shoulder out of joint anteriorly. This amount of force can easily be generated from your paddle jamming on a rock, or even being “fixated” by strong current while your boat rotates, if your hand gets outside the “box”.
I would say that you made 2 mistakes other than this: thinking that Class I to II whitewater was so easy that you could safely run it without any instruction at all, and trying to run whitewater in a 17 foot kayak.
Keep that elbow in
Seems like most ww dislocated shoulders are caused by bad form when bracing.
You need to keep those elbows tucked in toward you body, otherwise…
Hope you heal quickly.
Class 1 and 2
Class 1 it matters less, but class 2 is pushy enough that sea kayaks tend to only do decently in tidal race equivalents to class 2. And boofing rocks is no big deal in a plastic WW boat but not at all nice to do to your sea kayak.
As to shoulder, echo much of the above. I ran a class 2 several weeks ago with a not good shoulder, and found it prudent to do a lot more back paddling than I would in sea conditions. But it worked there and allowed me to largely control the boat from one side by altering whether I was back or forward paddling.
Very easy?!? S. Miguel drops fast and
frothy up there. I have run it down near Uravan where it is a little easier.
Your brother must be a real good paddler, the kind that no longer knows how to rate streams for beginners.
if this is the first time, u should be…
in a gunslinger sling, which will hold the busted up bits of your shoulder joint in alignment so that they heal close to the normal postion. Which means your shoulder won’t pop out again in normal use and you can avoid a nasty surgery.
go to a bone doctor and ask about this, if this is your situation. And do so as soon as possible, before things start fusing in an off postion.
this is fairly new stuff, figured out in Japan about a decade ago and now making inroads in the U.S. If the doctor is up on the literature, he will know and use this method.
Going old school–either a standard across the chest sling or no sling at all, is useless in terms of preventing another dislocation.
I speak from experience.
Thank’s!
For the advice! I have an appointment with the surgeon this week,I’ll ask him about it…
I was in a play boat! 6ft
MY boat is a 17 footer…Lakes and bays…
Im ten years his senior!!!
Im afraid i’ll have to take all the blame…
Im very cautious in my sea kayaking adventures…
I just had a laps in judgement,lesson learned!
my shoulder…
btw, seems about 100% now, after 6 or 7 weeks in the sling than a few months of stretching excercises and dumb bell work to strengthen the four rotator cuff muscles, which are what holds the ball of the upper end of the arm in its shallow socket.
I'd see your md tomorrow if you can swing it.
I am very, very grateful my doctor knew about this gunslinger sling. I saw how things had healed together properly in an x-ray about three months after the dislocation.
All kayakers should know about this technique, since kayaking is, I've heard, the sport most likely to dislocate shoulders, or one of them.
And take people's advice here--elbows and arms in front of your torso, always. Turn your trunk if you need to get the paddle behind you. As soon as your arm is straight out and extended back, forget it. The world's strongest man could have his shoulder popped out with a little pressure in the wrong direction. The rotator cuff muscles are small and just not that strong.
ww boats
Yes, ww boats spin rather than glide. It takes some getting used to on flat water before you jump into swift water for the first time. Hope you wore a helmet. You want to keep your arms in front of you and your elbows down.
Yes i did,
and the water i went over in was about 18in deep
so i well aware of obout 10 or 12 bog rocks before i swam…
Thank’s learner…
You seem to be the only person that did not say
“SUCK IT UP” or “IT WILL BE BETTER IN A WEEK”
i know! people just don’t…
know about this yet, not even some doctors. i hope they soon will. It would save a lot of misery.
How did you get it put back in place?
i went to er, was dosed up pretty good on serious narcotics to relax me and my muscles, then put in a funky position and it slid back in. Thank god for that--i was losing circulation and feeling in my hand cause the ball of the upper arm, out of socket as it was, was crushing the arteries and nerves that supply the lower arm. Everthing came back once the shoulder was back in place.
I have to wonder what would have happened if I was hundreds of miles in the wilderness and this had happened. It's scary to think of it.
And damn, did the dislocaton hurt. worst pain in my life, and pretty disturbing seeing my shoulder on top of my chest.
Turns out, I learned, the pain is because the muscles cramp up in the arm and shoulder.
Me Too!
The worst pain! I to lost feeling,it was dislocated about three hours before i got to the E.R.,when i told them my hand was numb they exrayed for breaks then "reduced"it…No pain meds…
They basically had me sit in a chair,the ex-ray tech put me in a head lock and the doc put a loop of cloth around my elbow held my wrist at a 90degree angle and than put his foot in it to apply the presure!! He told me to relax and take deep breaths!..Not something i want to do again.
Wow
when i dislocated my shoulder a while back now i ended up placing it back in its socket myself, although i did so by accident. so mine was probably only dislocated for about a minute, but it felt like someone had pushed a hot metal rod through my shoulder. i went to the doctor and they put me in a sling, took about a month to heal. i’ve never a had a problem with it since, guess i’m just lucky, and being pretty young when it happened also helps.just don’t try to go kayaking again till it heals, hope that doesn’t take too long for you.
sounds like a partial dislocation…
the head of the upper arm bone can slide part way out of the socket, then slip back in. If its fully dislocated, in most cases you can see the top of the upper arm bone bulging over and to the side of your upper chest.