Cyclist Picks Worst Place to Crash When Landing on Porcupine

Mountain biker Gavin Dickson chose the worst possible place to land after being thrown over the handlebars in a crash: on top of a PORCUPINE with 30,000 needle-sharp quills!

Lodge owner Gavin, 58, was on a 20-mile training ride as sunset fell and was going 25mph when Africa’s largest rodent suddenly sped off right in front of his wheels.

Unable to avoid the 25kg bristly beast, his bike slammed into it hard and the porcupine and Gavin became entangled as his bike tumbled down the dusty South African track.

When he got up he realized he had been dotted with spikes and that he was like a human pincushion with about 20 spikes dangling from his legs and feet and his tires were as flat as pancakes.

The porcupine he had struck was stunned, but the worst was yet to come: his angry companion was glaring at him from the brush, shaking its quills angrily and running at him.

Gavin said: “I was flat on the ground and all I could do was put my head down to let my helmet take the impact, but luckily the spikes were facing back and not at me.

“Porcupines normally attack from the side or back so the quills can do maximum damage to a predator or someone who is a threat to it, but this one just ran at me head-on.”

“It gave the porcupine I had just collided with a chance to get up and run away and then they both disappeared into the bush leaving me looking at all these quills stuck in me.”

“It was almost dark and both of my mountain bike tires had so many spikes stuck to them that there was no way I was going to fix all the punctures and I tried calling for help but couldn’t get a phone signal.

“I started removing the spikes from my legs and feet one by one and I was lucky most of them didn’t go in too deep, but there were two on my ankle that were very deep and very painful.”

“This is a remote area and hardly any cars go through here after dark so I knew I was in trouble as the South African bush is not a place to spend the night alone and I was in a bind,” he said.

Then Gavin, who runs the Hluhluwe River Lodge on the Elephant Coast in KwaZulu-Natal, had his first lucky break of the night: 2 cars carrying a plastic surgeon and 3 doctors came out of nowhere!

Gavin said: “I couldn’t believe it and the plastic surgeon had a full emergency kit including local anesthetic and he put the flashlight on his head and set about removing the two deep quills.”

“The spikes were sore, so I was grateful for the pain relief and one of the doctors was able to call a friend of mine to come out in his truck to get me and my bike to safety,” he said.

Plastic surgeon Dr. Ehren Eksteen, 45, was in his car with his wife Hendi, 43, and two other medical specialists were in the next car, so Gavin couldn’t have been in better hands.

Dr. Eksteen and his three colleagues enjoy studying South African wildlife and were looking for frogs and snakes in local national parks when they spotted Gavin in their headlamps.

Dr Eksteen from Pretoria said: “Gavin had picked out most of the porcupine quills himself, but there were two very deep ones left, both about 5cm deep, so I had to do a bit of surgery to get them.”

“I always carry my emergency medical kit and it has come in handy in the past, but this is the first time I’ve had to use it to fix an accident between a cyclist and a porcupine.”

“That road has almost no traffic at night, since after dark people stay home, so Gavin was very lucky we got through,” he said.

Gavin, a married father of two, from Hluhluwe, said: ‘My tires and handlebars tell the story of my bike and the photo of the spikes on my ankle and my cycling shoe tell the story of me and the porcupine!

“Lions and leopards often attack them, but they almost always come off worse and the quills stuck in their mouths can prevent them from feeding and starve or become infected and die of sepsis.”

“I went home for a cold beer and in the morning I saw the doctor who gave me a tetanus shot and some antibiotics and within a week I was back on the bike, but now I was wary of porcupines,” he said.

The Cape Porcupine can grow up to 28 kg and run at 6 mph and is the largest rodent in Africa and is covered in an incredible coat of 30,000 spikes that can grow up to 18 inches long.

Gavin said: “I drove by the scene the next day and out of curiosity I pulled over and got out and there were over 100 spikes on the track.” I collected them and have them in a pot at home as a reminder!’

Porcupines are usually nocturnal and when paired they stay together for life and are aggressively territorial and when hungry they will eat tree bark, berries, roots, grasses, seeds and leaves.