(Please read the following as saturated in sarcasm. Do not attempt this.)

Sick of long wait times in hospital emergency departments? Here is how to skip the lines and fast track your ED experience. 

Step 1: Ride your bike around a very dusty corner at moderate speed. 

Step 2: Fall off your bike. Be sure to fall onto your break lever in a way that it becomes lodged in your leg. 

Step 3: Be taken into the hospital by EMS still holding the handle bars. 

Step 4: Have break removed from your leg and be discharged. 

Step 5: Proceed to the nearest ice cream establishment. 

This is how I made it in and out of the busiest hospital in Calgary. The incident, from fall to being discharged, was 3 hours in total. I was working as a bike patroller and we were closing the trails at the end of a very epic and very dry day. I was responsible for closing Safari Planet, a local favourite due to the flowing table top jumps and burms. While riding down, I went into the first burm and hit a pile of dry dirt causing my bike to slide out from under me. I was a tangle of dirt, limbs, and bike. Embarrassed and glad no one was around to see, I attempted to push my bike off of me. It didn't budge but I felt a strange tugging on my leg. Thinking nothing of it, I tried to move again with the same result. It was then that I noticed my left break lever was missing. I looked around the crash site for it, but found nothing. I slowly began to realize that it was not missing at all, it was in my leg.

I briefly considered pulling the lever out, which was lodged in the same vicinity as my femoral artery, and riding down. After what felt like hours of deliberation, I finally decided the best thing to do would be to call for help. After sending out the patrol signal, my coworkers rushed back up the hill. After much protest on my part, EMS and Fire were called. My bike was dismantled and I was dragged out of the trail, still holding my handlebars. 

Now, if you are ever riding down Safari Planet at COP, there is a set of handlebars, with the left break coloured red, mounted to a tree on the first corner with a sign reading Breaklevr Burm.