About three years ago I got in a mountain bike crash and broke my collar bone and three ribs, managed to ride off the mountain (for any locals it was the Mailboxes trail in Santa Cruz) drove home to the East Bay and walked into the ER.
They did the first round of X-rays and were about to let me go since there's not much they do with ribs and collar bones these days. The last minute the Doc came back in and told me that breaking my first rib is pretty difficult and they wanted a few more X-rays which is when they found my pneumothorax and shit hit the fan. I was suddenly in a neck brace and had a Doctor shoving a tube into my chest and had to spend three days in a trauma ward to make sure everything was okay.
All this being said, I knew I had a broken Collarbone right after the fall, but outside of that I literally rode my bike three miles off the hill and drove home for an hour and walked into the ER, and was about to leave feeling fine. It's somewhat "common" for these to be missed after traumatic accidents - though most ER's know to look for them.
I used to know someone that only went to the doc a few days after the traffic accident. Incomplete neck fracture, hanging by a thread. One wrong move and she would have dropped dead on the spot.
They did the first round of X-rays and were about to let me go since there's not much they do with ribs and collar bones these days. The last minute the Doc came back in and told me that breaking my first rib is pretty difficult and they wanted a few more X-rays which is when they found my pneumothorax and shit hit the fan. I was suddenly in a neck brace and had a Doctor shoving a tube into my chest and had to spend three days in a trauma ward to make sure everything was okay.
All this being said, I knew I had a broken Collarbone right after the fall, but outside of that I literally rode my bike three miles off the hill and drove home for an hour and walked into the ER, and was about to leave feeling fine. It's somewhat "common" for these to be missed after traumatic accidents - though most ER's know to look for them.