Awful truth.

SKATER'S VOW AFTER 70km/h SMASH HOBART, TASMANIA, AUSTRALIA -- Jeremy Xepapas used to get a "rush" from riding a skateboard downhill at 70km/h. That stopped 10 days ago when he almost lost his life on a downhill "bum's rush" on Proctor's Road. For the uninitiated, a bum's rush is riding a skateboard while sitting or lying on it. Jeremy's last rush was an ambulance ride to the Royal Hobart Hospital, where, recovering from serious multiple injuries, he vowed yesterday never to get on a skateboard again. "I lost control and hit a guard rail on the road and next thing I was lying in a pool of blood and thought I was going to die," the 21-year-old said. He lost liters of blood on the road, his left knee cartilage seems to have disappeared, tendons have been ripped from his bones, and he had a severed artery and severe nerve damage. "They had to call a firetruck to wash the blood off the road," he said.