Bike riders, beware of cars!
I've often thought that most car drivers are oblivious to anything without at least a 4 cylinder engine, and I'm not ready to change my mind about that just yet.
Bryan came in on Thursday night after riding his bike home from UBC. From the laundry I heard him say "I had a bit of a spill". So like the doting/worrying girlfriend that I am, I picked up the bandaids and went to see how much blood was involved.
He was standing - that was a good sign, and I could see he had a cut on his leg. Then he held up the palms of his hands, where a lot of skin was missing. His wrist was hurting and the sleeve of his jacket was shredded, so we thought he probably got a sprain when he landed on his hands. When we took his jacket off (carefully) the skin on his elbow was missing, and his shoulder was sore. There was a lot of blood so he got straight in the shower to clean up, before I practiced my first aid skills.
So what happened? He was at the top of the hill on 16th Avenue, about a minute's ride from home. The traffic was slow, but the bus/bike lane was clear, so Bryan rode straight passed the cars, with all the speed of someone who was keen to get home. Then a car became impatient with the slow traffic, and pulled out into the bus/bike lane right in front of Bryan. Bryan had to put on his brakes very quickly or he would have hit the car. He swerved and avoided hitting the car, but ended up falling from his bike. The car continued on, oblivious of the trouble it had caused and clearly overjoyed to have escaped the slow line of traffic it had been in. Luckily for Bryan, sprawled in the middle of the road, the cars weren't moving, and an approaching bus had stopped. A few people were kind enough to stop and check that he was ok, but nobody had seen the license plate of the idiot car. Bryan walked his bike down the hill and home.
Once we had dressed his wounds, put his wrist in a tensor bandage and applied the awesome powers of Tylenol 3, Bryan seemed to be quite cheerful and enjoyed a large bowl of icecream. I've always been taught that if someone is well enough to eat icecream after an accident, then they are probably going to survive. But after a painful night, we got up early and made our way to Urgent Care. It turns out his wrist was broken at the lunate bone, which is uncommon. So now Bryan's right arm is all wrapped up in a cast, and he won't be riding his bike, swimming, or playing golf for several weeks. What is worse is that broken wrist bones are extremely prone to arthritic pain after they've healed, so this may be an incident that he remembers for many years to come.
I'm helping him out a lot with the things that he has trouble with, but I'm going to be away on the conference trail for a big chunk of the next 6 weeks, so I hope he will be largely independent by then. I feel like taking a photo of him with his arm in a cast and bandages everywhere, and posting it somewhere obvious at the top the hill where the idiot car was last seen. Probably the driver won't notice it next time they drive past, but maybe it would serve as a warning to bike riders to watch out for idiot cars. It pisses me off that the driver of that car just went on home to his/her family/roommates/cat, completely oblivious to the trouble he/she caused, congratulating him/herself on getting home quickly despite the slow traffic. He/she probably thinks that makes him/her a really good driver!





1 Comments:
That sucks! Once, I was hit by a pickup truck while riding my bike when I was about 20 I guess. Luckily, somehow I only got a sprained ankle. The driver of that truck was completely aware that he hit me... so he took off!!!! Bastard.
GET WELL SOON BRYAN!
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