This is a much better story than the last time I was hit by a car

As some of you may have heard, I was run over by a mid sized SUV while on my bicycle Monday night. The following is a detailed account, from my perspective, of what happened that night, accompanied by diagrams and photographs when useful.

It was raining off and on throughout the evening of Monday the 14th. I left Matt's apartment for a meeting with the director of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie". We were going to discus the sound design. The meeting was in a building close to the intersection of Southport and Lincoln. It was dark. I was wearing my helmet. There was a blinking red light on my bag, and a blinking white headlight on my handlebars.

map

I did not follow the route suggested by Google. I started out traveling north on Damen until I hit Fullerton. At the intersection, I turned right and started traveling east on Fullerton. By the time I was approaching the Ashland intersection, it was raining consistently, but not heavily. The road, and my bicycle, were quite wet. There were puddles forming in the gutters. I passed through the Ashland intersection without incident close to 6:00 pm.

The Greenview intersection is an all way stop. Traffic travels in both directions on Fullerton, east and west. Traffic travels in only one direction on Greenview, north. As I was approaching the Greenview intersection, an eastbound car was just passing though. The northbound car on Greenview had the right of way.

fig.1

I applied my brakes, but realized that I was not going to be able to stop in enough time to avoid getting rolled over. Noticing Greenview was one way, I planned to escape by turning left (north) onto Greenview pulling along side the motorist and avoiding a collision with any potential car behind her. Unfortunately, she was not continuing north through the intersection, but was making a left turn onto Fullerton. We met in the intersection. I stayed behind in the intersection with the left arm of my crank, while she continued about 15 or 20 feet onto Fullerton, dragging my bicycle along, as it had been sucked under her mid sized SUV.

fig.2

She pulled over. I stood up and hobbled out of the intersection. My left ankle hurt. She got out of the car and we both stared at my bike underneath. A woman came up offering to call an ambulance. We all stared at my leg after I took my shoe and sock off to check for a pool of blood. We looked at my scrapes. I was hesitant and eventually declined the ambulence. There were no bones sticking out of my leg and since 1) I was able to walk away and 2) I am uninsured, I decided it was best not to call an ambulance, although this witness was very sure she saw the car roll over my leg.

For a few minutes, I tried to pull my bike out from underneath the car. I was able to remove the front wheel, but the handlebars had been crushed in such a way that they were catching on the undercarriage. I had her drive up onto the curb, and I was able to remove the bicycle.

We stared at each other for a little bit longer, confused. She had never run anyone over before, and I had never been run over before. We weren't sure what the next step was. I don't have any sort of bicycle insurance, and I didn't think I would be able to get anything from her company since she had the right of way to begin with. We exchanged information and I told her that I would call in a few days. She left and I carried my wreck the rest of the way to my meeting.

handlebars
Derailleur
crank arm
crank arm closer

Matt came and picked me up from my meeting. I went to my friend Casey's apartment. He bought me an ACE bandage and I bought myself a bottle of generic Ibuprofen. We iced, elevated and compressed my injured ankle like our sophomore year health teacher, Mr. Foerich (pronounced Fair-ick) taught us. Mr. Foerich also taught us pulling out was an ineffective means of birth control because "you have to dribble before you shoot". I wanted to get my leg looked at by a doctor to make sure I wasn't facing any serious crippling injury that could have been avoided with any number simple, inexpensive yet quickly enacted preventative care. I talked to Demian about charity care, but after some research, decided that I was ineligible, as far as I could tell. I could have called my parents to ask them, but I didn't because 1) I was pretty sure they wouldn't know any better than I did and 2) I didn't want to make my mom cry by telling her I got run over by a car.

Tuesday morning I walked to the Damen Augusta Medical Center to have a doctor look at my ankle. I was expecting it to feel a lot worse than it did on Monday night, but it actually felt better than it had. The doctor was very impressed at my first aid. Her diagnosis was Tendonitis. She recommended that I keep doing what I had been doing and wrote me a prescription for antibiotic ointment.

rx

I've been to work all week. Today the thing that hurt the most was the scrapes on my foot. My bike is pretty trashed, although maybe the frame is still good. I am going to get a professional opinion. I have options.

I talked to my mom on the phone today but didn't tell her about the accident.

I think the one thing this whole experience has taught me is that I am indestructible.

This will probably be a good story to tell my mom when Matt and Willoughby get sick of me and I have to move onto Will's couch. I will tell her to take comfort in the fact that I am most likely bulletproof.