The following was written as an e-mail on the morning of October 21, 2004 to my friends and family. Since more is now known about the incident than I knew then, I've edited it somewhat for publishing on the web. The pictures of my injuries are on
a separate page with captions.
On Wednesday, October 20, at about 4pm, I left my house on my bicycle, heading to Providence Center for Occupational Medicine (PCOM), 2.5 miles away, to get a physical and drug test in order to get my CDL so that I could drive a school bus for Laidlaw (I was in training with them to be a school bus driver). Less than half a mile from my house, as I was heading north on Columbus on the right side of the right lane, I was hit by a car at the intersection of Columbus and Main by a car traveling west on Main. The intersection is controlled by a traffic light, and the light was green as I went through (I always follow all traffic laws), so I think the car on Main was turning right on a red light. According to the staff at PCOM, a man in a brown pickup truck dropped me off there and left without giving them his name or contact information. It was obvious to them that I had been in a bike accident and had hit my head pretty hard. They called an ambulance to take me to the emergency room. I was there for several hours while they did a CAT scan on my head and cleaned and treated my scrapes. My roomate Steve came and picked me up in the evening, we left at about 7:15pm. At home, I ate some stew, called a few people on the phone, checked my email, took pictures of myself, and went to bed.
This is the first time I've ever had a concussion, and it's weird to have my memories either gone or in a jumble, coming back to me slowly and in random fashion. I'm starting to remember things that I did yesterday, and just this morning I was able to piece together the actual sequence of events of yesterday before I left on my bike - things like having gone to Laidlaw that morning, having washed dishes, having crawled around in our attic. I still don't remember actually getting on my bike and riding, and I have memories of remembering weird vague dreams of being on my bicycle, getting hit by a car, then going somewhere, and talking to people, being in an ambulance and then the hospital, and talking to people while I was in the hospital. These things are still foggy and disjointed, though, and there are other things floating around in my head connected with that which don't make sense or didn't happen, and people tell me that I was awake and talking and moving the entire time, but I don't remember having said some of the things they remember me saying. Steve and Kristen, and other people, tell me that I kept saying the same things and asking the same questions over and over - the nurses said it was like a loop tape.
Besides the concussion, my injuries are relatively minor. I have a scrape on the top of both my wrists, much worse on the left wrist, minor scrapes on my right knuckles, minor scrapes (through my pants) on the outside/top of my left knee, a scrape and bruise on the inside/underside of my right knee, a significant scrape and bruise on the front/top of my left shoulder, and the same on the whole left side of my face, mostly on my upper cheekbone near my eye. My left eye has become quite swollen this morning, not quite swollen shut though. I get a minor headache if I move around too much, but overall I'm not in much pain.
I am quite sure that a car hit me from the right and knocked me onto the ground on my left side so suddenly that I didn't even have time to get my hands off the handlebars and out in front of me. That's the first time I've ever fallen, off a bike or snowboard or running or anything, and not had my hands out instantly to protect me. However, I have no injuries on my right side, so I think the car hit my rear tire, not my leg.
Every time I ride my bicycle, I wear a bike helmet and my fingerless gloves for protection if I fall, and I carry my small backpack with water, my first aid kit, and my knife. Just about all of my memories of everything yesterday are still very vague and disconnected, seeming much more like memories of a dream than like memories of real life.
Unless we can figure out who hit me (we have a local police officer helping with that), it seems like there's no way to pay for the ambulance trip and hospital visit, since I'm unemployed and now am delayed another week or 2 from getting a job. We'll see what happens.
The day after I wrote this, we were able to get my bicycle back from PCOM, and found that it had almost no damage. The left side of the seat and handlebars was scraped a little, and the rear wheel was a little more out of true than it was before the accident, but it was still just as rideable as it had been, and I continued to ride it to work and back (I did eventually finish training and started work as a school bus driver) and it remained my main form of transportation. Months after the accident, we still have no idea exactly what happened, and I still haven't gotten the hospital bill, and I have no idea how I might pay for it when it comes.