On most mornings I ride my bike .9 miles from our house to the gym and back. On October 14 I was riding home on the sidewalk and came to the intersection of the neighborhood before our street. As usual, there were cars ready to pull out onto Conway Rd, a pretty busy road. I paused at the corner and made the assessment that ongoing traffic was coming and the cars in front of me would not pull out.
I remember sliding along the ground thinking, "Well, this is happening, I wonder how bad this will be."
He stopped quickly and backed up while I got up and pulled my smashed bike out of the road. I was stunned, but after I sat down a second and noticed the bad scrape on my ankle, I thought, "I"m ok!"
He was upset, but nice and took care of me. and drove me and my bike home. I thanked him, took a picture of my bike (this one), sent a text to the family, told Dayna the story, and went to take a shower, shave, and got ready for my 8:30 meeting. I was kind of giddy about being alive and not being hurt.
About 10 minutes into my meeting I noticed I could not straighten my arm, and it was swelling up and hurting. So, I left the meeting and we went to the orthopedic clinic at the hospital and learned my arm was broken at the elbow!
We made it home from the hospital by my 11 am meeting and I had a full day of meetings that day. I am pretty sure I was running on the adrenaline from the morning!
Now it is six weeks out and I'm doing OK. My ankle is still healing and my wrist still hurts, but the bone has healed. I still can't straighten it all the way, but it's a lot better.
I still feel a tremendous sense of gratitude to be alive! I've known a few people that have died from bike accidents, so I know it could have been much worse.
And yes, I was wearing a helmet. And no, I have not fixed my bike yet.
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