The Crash

I sustained some arm injuries after a bike crash – the only blood-drawing crash I remember – in Albuquerque in April. I was riding on a barely lit bike trail along an arroyo, and there was a bump in the pavement followed by a significant drop in elevation. My balance was thrown, my tires didn’t land square, and I skidded along the ground on my right elbow, wrist, and forearm. I made the best of a bad situation by showing off my grotesque road rash to anyone who would look for a few weeks.

Unfortunately, only two months passed before this incident was relegated to my second worse bike crash.

I was on my first ride into work from my new apartment on Monday morning. The route I took was generally similar to the one I’ve been taking for the past four weeks. After riding on bike trails alongside “car” roads, I take a bike-only path through Beatrixpark (as the name suggests, a park) before hitting the road to the university.

There was nothing unusual about the ride on Monday. I went through Beatrixpark, passing a few bikers and being passed by a few others. As I biked along the path, I saw a motorized scooter pull up from a road that intersected the bike path at a 90 degree angle from the right. He was about 40 feet away when I saw him, and I immediately stopped pedaling to make sure he wasn’t going to dart onto the path, and to confirm I didn’t have any yield, slow, or stop signs. He slowed and came to a complete stop and looked left in my direction, and right at a cyclist approaching me from the other direction. Since he’d stopped and seen cross-traffic on the bike path, I continued pedaling at my previous speed.

When I was about 10 feet from the scooter, the driver pulled out onto the bike path, directly in front of me. It was too short of a distance for me to do anything but scream. From what I remember, it was a pretty impressive – if involuntary – scream.

I could describe the impact with two seemingly contradictory clichés – “time stood still,” “and it happened so fast.” On the one hand, the moment leading up to impact seemed like it lasted an eternity. That half second between riding along as normal and realizing that a crash was inevitable was such a stark contrast between the previous twenty calm minutes and the following turbulent, semi-shocked hours that it seemed to occupy far more time than it actually did. On the other hand, the collision and landing happened so quickly that I’m note entirely sure how to describe my trajectory and impact.

But I’ll try.

I don’t know if or how I braced myself for impact. All I remember was screaming and feeling my wheel slam into his scooter. Then I remember being airborne, but I have no idea if I flipped head-over-heels, or if my head always went first, and I simply corkscrewed to land on my back. I do vaguely recall my headphones/mp3 player and glasses ejecting from my head, and I think I remember seeing them crash to the ground before I did.

Someone – the scooter rider, maybe – offered me a hand after I was on the ground for a few moments. I was surprised that I was conscious, that my legs were working, and I that I did not feel the pain of broken bones. I now laugh at myself a bit for my first question after I’d gathered my wits: I asked a pretty girl who was concerned with my well being if she could grab my glasses and mp3 player, both of which were squarely in the middle of the bike trail. She brought them to me, and I was surprised that my frames were whole, and only the right lens was damaged.

The scooter rider took his helmet off and asked me if I was okay about a dozen times. I alternated between saying, “yes,” “maybe,” “I don’t know,” and “give me a minute.” Eventually, I tried flexing my hands and wiggling my toes as a crude test for serious nerve damage, and I did some arm circles and leg stretches to check for broken bones. Everything checked out, though I did have some pain in my upper back and neck.

After a bit, he told me that we should walk to his office and talk about insurance. I was still in a state of semi-shock, and I would have gone along with just about anything anyone told me at this point. He noted that I wouldn’t be able to ride my bike. I didn’t understand at first. He pointed to my front wheel, which was bent to the point that it wouldn’t rotate. I later noticed that the fork was also bent. All-in-all, the crash damage to the bike exceeded the bike’s value. I labored through the mile and a half walk to his office under the humidity and hottest temperatures of the year. I lifted the front part of the bike with one arm and allowed the still functioning back wheel to stay on the ground.

When we got to his office, I found Ed to be a tremendously kind, second-generation Surinamese family man. He repeatedly told me that he wanted to make things right, and that he wanted to cover all damage to me and my bike. He took some pictures, and we filled out an insurance form together. I’m not sure what the end result will be – if I’ll get any money to cover my bike, glasses, mp3 player, and any eventual medical bills – but the effort he put into trying to resolve the situation was a real comfort.

Although I don’t seem to have broken any bones, the discomfort in my neck and back has gotten progressively worse. The pain has been distractingly intense at times. I have very limited range of motion in the neck, and I am having a little difficulty taking deep breaths. I believe these are all typical symptoms of whiplash.

But regardless of how exactly I landed or what specific injuries I sustained, I am guessing that I am tremendously lucky to have walked away as I did. A face plant could have destroyed all of my teeth; landing on my head could have broken my neck; landing on my arm could have resulted in a compound fracture; landing wrong on a leg, hip, or shoulder could have broken any number of bones. Many landing positions could have been paralyzing or fatal.

The critical reader might be asking: “why didn’t you go to the doctor???” Two main reasons. First, largely due to the slowness in getting my social security number, bank account, residency permit, etc., I do not yet have health insurance. Since I didn’t seem to require care urgently, I decided to not undergo the hassle of dealing with a foreign medical system without insurance. Second, I was fairly certain that the doctor would simply suggest rest and pain killers. I’ve been able to take care of both of these things myself.

The timing could have been better. I leave for a conference in Montpellier, France 48 hours after the crash. It’s somewhat reminiscent of injuring my ankle badly enough that it couldn’t sustain weight 48 hours before going to Oaxaca for Paul and Annie’s wedding. Hopefully my brain will start working properly again soon so I can write and practice the talk I’ll be giving.