Footpeg Injuries

Dean Wilson St Louis supercross last year. 

It will probably be fine, you'll know if it isn't. If it's open it's going to take a while to heal. 

Don't go to the ER unless you want a big bill go to urgent care. My friend had something similar happened. Just keep it clean and a bandage on it. It will heal up with time. 

5-31-21 I ripped my shin open to the bone from a foot peg. My sock was soaked in blood, a lot of blood in my boot.  I was balancing on the bike & set talking to the 04. I can’t wait to ride ya baby,etc. I jump off to the left & bounced off a pile of stuff, pushing me towards the bike. The left peg ripped my rt leg open when my body came down. I went to Walgreens & bought wound cleaning stuff. I showed cleaned it a couple times. I went to the dr the next day. Waited for ever . The dr asked when did it happen . She said it’s beyond 12 hrs I can’t do stitches because it will be infected either way. She had another dr look at it . They discussed it. And said your going to get infected but we,ll stitch it up. I got anitbiotics & went back to work. 7 days a week no blood flow to your legs . It got infected real bad. Pic is after a shower the yellow fell off the wound,7-6-21.  August the next time home I ripped my left leg open but got stitches rt away. My 1st one they said ovr  1 yr to heal. A diff Dr said, how do I know I slit mine open in college on a desk. I don’t remember exactly how long for healing but it wasn’t 1 yr. 38 stitches in the 1st one.

Back in mid 90's I swapped out in a set of sand whoops. Cut open the bottom half of my knee cap. Peg squeezed between my upper boot and the bottom of my knee pad. Got two layers of stitches. 

Weird thing is , it cut some nerves and didn't really hurt. I rode for like another 1/2hr. Started getting tired and my left foot inside my boot felt like I was walking in a swamp. Nope.....my boot was full of blood. Kinda freaked when I first saw it. Was not fun getting all the sand scrubbed out of it either. 

Yup. Right shoulder. Went off the bike on a downhill and the only part of the bike to land on me was the foot peg. Fortunately they were stock and not of the extra sharp variety. Still have a scar though. 

Look at these little buggers below, looks like a Great White sharks teeth just waiting to tear off a nice big piece of flesh off your body.   Most people can go their entire lives not having a peg injury, but Damn! certain pegs are almost terrifying to think  they're down there just waiting to attack.  They are cool to look at, but then so are Sharks until they get hungry. 

Ricky Carmichael had a foot peg injury his first year on the KX250.

Man OP that sounds rough. Glad you’re okay.

Carmichael at the San Diego SX in 99. That was nasty.

I also had a chunk of flesh ripped off my lower leg just above the boot line...a bunch of stitches had me fixed.

I saw his crash in person and when we got back to the pits there was a trail of blood by the Kawa rig. There is a picture of his footpeg bite floating around somewhere.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3bQJ9Lv2Zx0

Carmichael @ 1:10.20

Yep he landed right on the foot peg it looked like. Good find. I ended up watching the whole race. Good win for Lusk 👍

Wounds can heal by "secondary intention" which is what it sounds like you are asking about.  This often is done when the tissue defect is large and cannot be brought together with sutures to allow for "primary intention" (suture or "stitches") healing. 

For example, if a chunk of skin is missing, there may not be a way to reasonably approximate (bring together) the skin edges to suture them and the wound may be left open and allowed to heal via "secondary intention".  An alternative option might be advanced surgical techniques such as flaps, grafts, etc.

The process of secondary intention is that the wound will heal from the bottom up rather than in primary intention where the sutures allow the top layer of skin (epidermis) to heal directly together.  Secondary intention healing will take longer and have more scarring associated with it.

This information is not intended for your specific injury but to serve as general information regarding wound care principles and terminology.  If you are having doubts/concerns about your care, you could always get a second opinion.

of all the things i have ever spent money on, these are not one of them. These things terrify me for that very reason.

 They used bone from my hip and flesh and skin from my upper leg to close it. And it’s good now 👍 

Those pegs are beautiful!  But, No thanks!

I've hit my knee on my pegs enough times just loading up my bike .

Holy fu&k pro!  I got to the end of that thinking who tf is that? was it recent? are they feverish?  I scroll up and it’s you! 😂 makes perfect sense. Walmart Bactine and bandaids, lots of bandaids

Currently admitted in the hospital for a few days from my cuts from the foot pegs and being thrown into a barb wire fence. The cuts got infected pretty bad 

Caught a footpeg to my inner upper arm. Gash from my elbow to my armpit. Honestly surprised these injuries don’t happen more often.  

Yea I think these pegs are too sharp we've seen what they do to someone's leg. What would happen if by some freak accident it caught someone in the throat or back of the neck sometime. 

When I moved to California around 1977, I went to a District 36 race.  They had a tech inspection and required that the rear axle nut and wing nut on the old rear brake arm get covered with duct tape.  The reason was those were dangerous parts of the bike that could injure you in a crash....... I responded with "what about all those sharp teeth on the sprocket?"   Crickets.

I'm just here for the explicit pics 

Well, now I'm questioning having raptor pegs on my track bike ... It seems like even IMS or really any peg could do some serious damage. Does the "extra" sharpness really change the dynamic?

 These are good, not too sharp and more space to stand

Maybe I'm the exception, but I've always used stock pegs (I'm talking "modern" bikes with decent sized pegs. Not what came on a 1973 XR 75 or even an 1978 CR 250) and I've never had and issue with a foot slipping off.  I've ridden other people's bikes with those fancy pegs and honestly I have had my foot stuck when I wasn't wanting it stuck. I'm also guessing those pegs must chew the soles of your boots into shreds pretty quickly. 

The Raptors actually do less damage to my boots, because the sole isn't moving around, grinding against the teeth.  Once you're on the peg, you're on there until you pick your boot straight upward and move it. 

Uuhgg!! Gawd I should not have checked back in on this thread! Never been good at seeing things like that. 

Ooooh, I am in this club, right down to the shin bone.

I spent an hr I don’t hv telling a story about it. I go to check the pic & everything deleted. Love the new system.  Mon pouring rain & strong winds across Pa. . I,m in line to scale but the illegal doesn’t know what he’s doing in front of me. I waited 20 min then backed up drove around & got fuel. Then drove around & scaled & parked on a 18% grade. Wsnted to scsle 1st to see how much fuel I could put on 1st.trk is more physical than Jack hammering & bests the shut out of ya. Plus 20+ hr days of ne is a killer literally.  Pouring rain yet I get out & slam the broken door & think oh no the key is in the ignition. And try to stop the door. My index finger is stuck in the door. I ripped it out. We only get 1 key here every co always has 2. 1 stays in your pocket & 1 in the ignition. The illegal is parked near me. I tracked blood all ovr ghe ts. I made it into Ohio a service plaza. Doing laundry & in line to get a shower with 11 waiting.  I go to get food & everything is closed but Duncan donuts. I had a freezer bag & asked the smoken Hit little blonde for some ice. Long story but she says come back after your laundry & shower.   Finger had pressure like it was being squeezed from a vise grip. I do think I slept but desperately needed to. 47 degrees at 4am my time burr. Then dive to angry apolis in cold for June 60 & rain. Pic of finger it’s twice the size nail up.

If even a stock peg on a modern bike is relatively pointy, not sharp and certainly not sharp like a Raptor / Scar, but it has teeth to some extent.

Then how much will the added gnarly jagged-ness of the Raptor affect the injury with 240lbs of out of control bike driving it into one of us flesh bags?

I assume it would be worse, especially catching you in any area protected by pants as I guess the Raptor would be better able to slice the material rather than getting hung up on it.

I know there's probably no real proven answer, but interested in you folks opinion.

I know some MTB pedals like a DMR V8 / V12 or Atom Lab with the gnarly pins cut you up noticeably worse than a moderately grippy pedal like an old Shimano DX or most BMX dirt/trail pedals.

Umm, OK?  Cool story bro 😂

Remnants from a street riding crash more than 30 years ago. Got hit by a car and the footpeg ripped into my lower left leg. I remember sitting up in the ER and looking at my leg and was shocked at how bad it was. I could see muscles and tendons, etc. Nasty scar, but it healed up fine and has never given me any problems other than once in a while I'll feel an itch and when I go to scratch - the itchy spot is not where I actually feel it.