BY ANDY TAYLOR

CHERRYVALE — The family of an 11-year-old Cherryvale boy is counting their blessings today — after a freak bicycle accident on Monday caused the bicycle handle bar to impale the boy’s left leg.

The damage to Colton Poole’s left leg was contained to fatty tissue and not the femur bone or the femoral artery that travels down the thigh. The fact that Poole sustained only tissue damage is regarded as a miracle considering how the damage happened in the first place.

Here’s the story . . .

Poole, age 11, was riding his new bicycle — which he got in June — with younger sister Allison Poole and another friend near the First Baptist Church at East Main and Montgomery streets on Monday afternoon.

However, when approaching a sidewalk curb at a high rate of speed, Poole’s front bicycle tire turned upon impact, causing the left side of the blunt handle bar to impale the inner thigh of his left leg.

Poole’s friend — not knowing the precarious matter of impaled object in the human body — tried pulling the handle bar from Colton’s thigh, but the pain was too intense for the injured Poole. The friend then ran to his house, where he contacted a relative who is employed with the Cherryvale Fire-Rescue Department. The relative, who was off duty, came to the scene of the collision, noticed the impaled handle bars and immediately contacted the department for medical support.

Brian Poole, Colton’s father, said the handle bar entered the thigh at a depth of about two and a half to three inches. The impact did not reach the femur bone, nor did it sever the femoral artery, which is the primary artery that flows through the thigh. The impact and damage were solely to muscle and fatty tissue, Brian said.

Cherryvale Fire-Rescue Department members went into action to prohibit the impaled handle bars from movement, fearing that any movement might cause damage to more tissue or possibly severe the femoral artery. The department members unbolted the bicycle from the handle bars; the handle bars were then secured to Colton’s body. Poole was then transferred to Labette Health in Parsons, where surgeons were able to remove the  remainder of the handle bar and stitch the wound together.

Poole was expected to be released from Labette Health on Tuesday afternoon.

“He was a real trooper during the entire process,” Brian Poole said of his son. “He was in some pain, but was given morphine. He cried a little bit in the emergency room, but he seemed interested in knowing what the surgeons were going to do. He wanted to watch the surgeons take out the handle bar from his leg.”

Poole said the impact of the blunt handle bar with the thigh revealed the high rate of force that required the metal bar to enter the leg. Amazingly, the rubber hand grip on the handle bar was still intact upon impact and is believed to have made a seal around the wound, thus preventing a lot of blood loss, Brian said.

“It was totally a freak accident, but it was a miracle how it turned out,” he said. “It could have been a lot worse, perhaps hitting some vital organs. He’s very lucky that the injury was not any worse.”

For the Cherryvale Fire-Rescue Department, previous training sessions in high-collision impacts and impaled objects proved their worth. Ron Davis, fire-rescue chief, said department members immediately knew that the impaled handle bar had to remain in place and Colton’s body could not move as the bicycle was unbolted from the handle bar.

“This was not a case of removing the handle bar from the bicycle. This was a case removing the bicycle from the handle bar,” said Davis. “After the bicycle was basically unbolted from the handle bar, we had to secure the handle bar in place. It was quite a challenging procedure. However, our top priority, as told to us in training, is never to move an impaled object. The object can only be removed in surgery.”

Davis said the fire-rescue personnel have learned about impaled objects in classes that deal with removing victims from vehicle collisions. However, Davis said he never believed he would treat a person who was impaled by a bicycle.

“I’ve been doing this for 36 years and have never seen anything like it,” he said.

Brian Poole said emergency workers at Labette Health also were startled by the impaled object and were taking photographs of the handle bar for future reference and study.

Colton Poole, who will be in the sixth grade at Cherryvale’s Lincoln-Central Elementary School, will be on crutches for several weeks, his father said.

And, only after his leg has healed will he get back on another bicycle, Brian said.

“I asked Colton if he planned on riding that fast on a bicycle again,” Brian said. “Colton just laughed and said, ‘No, I’ll take it slow next time.’”