LEWISTON – Kelsey Lamdin has bumped her head and nicked her hands on the diving board more than once.

When you’re tiptoeing up to 10 feet above the pool and catapulting yourself into it headfirst, those are occupational hazards and inherent dangers you either accept and block out, or quit the sport.

But hearing that telltale thud and seeing the gush of your own blood 90 minutes before a meet? Never had it happened to Lamdin before, and certainly not in an environment like her fourth and final NCAA championship.

“Never a dull moment,” Lamdin said of her misadventure in practice while representing Bates College at the University of Minnesota last Friday. “I remember the whole thing. I never lost consciousness. I didn’t have a concussion.”

She also had no intentions of withdrawing from the meet.

The remainder of Lamdin’s whirlwind afternoon consisted of a short ambulance ride, a whistle stop in the emergency room, a quick return to the pool, and just enough time to report herself ready for competition.

Lamdin applied the improbable exclamation point by finishing 10th in the 1-meter diving sweepstakes.

Coupled with her performance in Wednesday’s 3-meter showcase, the Brunswick woman’s comeback story rounded out a rare “great eight” for her career. Lamdin garnered All-America honors at both heights in all four years.

“I’m the first diver at Bates to do it,” Lamdin said. “It means a lot to me to accomplish that.”

Perhaps the most amazing part of Lamdin’s journey, to anyone who has spent three or four hours waiting to be seen in an emergency room, was the speedy turnaround time at the hospital.

Lamdin received an assist from one of her coaches, Mike Bartley, who accompanied her to the ER and helped to crack the whip.

“We explained the immediacy of the situation,” she said. “Fortunately the hospital was only about two blocks away, because it’s all within the University of Minnesota campus.”

Fifteen sutures were needed to close the wound, which likely will be a visible souvenir and conversation piece until graduation in May.

“It left a nice crease in my head about 2 inches long,” Lamdin said. “I also cut my hand. The board is covered in paint mixed with sand. That happens quite a bit. It’s a little bit like getting road rash.”

Lamdin completed her required array of dives – including the troublesome reverse maneuver that left her in stitches – without a hiccup.

She missed a berth in the eight-woman evening finals by only two spots. The top 16 finishers in preliminaries share the All-America distinction.

“I wanted to be able to compete so badly, being a senior and knowing it was my last meet,” Lamdin said.

That sudden void will be filled with school and then job hunting for the foreseeable future, with few competitive venues available to post-graduate divers.

Lamdin stopped far short of pronouncing herself retired, however.

“Diving is over for right now. It’s been such a big part of my life for eight years that it’s not something you can just let go in a day,” she said. “I’d love to coach. I’ll probably be looking for a job that involves coaching.”