Welp, my second crash happened. I was almost a statistic, instead I’m just broken.
The damage is as follows...
Body: Double open fracture in wrist, contusion in lung, fractured ribs and collarbone, giant hematoma in thigh, 3 staples to hold my arm guts in, an ankle so swollen, red, black and blue that I still don’t believe it’s not broken, many misc. scrapes, cuts, bruises.
Bike: Totaled, check in hand for total loss coverage. Uh, yay…
Life: I have no FMLA protection from my job because I hadn’t been there a year yet. I’ll be fired and without insurance soon. Medical costs remain to be accounted for, we’ll see on that. I’ll apparently have permanent range of movement loss in my wrist, but oh well.
I was riding home from work. Same route, same traffic, same as the other couple hundred times. An underinsured driver (woohoo…) of many, many years waiting to make a left somehow floored their pedal (enough to jerk their car and skid, almost as if a perfect prop for me to slam into) and appeared in front of me, blocking my entire lane and some of the other. I had no time to do anything but t-bone it at 45MPH into a cozy deadstop. I don’t even remember the impact, only waking up on pavement surrounded by helpful people waiting on an ambulance in agony.
I’m so quick to take pleasure in pointing out… this wasn’t my fault… I didn’t almost die because of ME… but I did. I only had my helmet and gloves on, too lazy and too confident over the months to change out of my work/riding clothes twice a day. I trusted the competency of other drivers with my life. I am so, so lucky to be alive. I think this type of crash would have killed me 9 times outta 10 with the tshirt and shorts I was wearing.
It’s a hard lesson… a mistake I’ll never make again, and I will ride again with renewed respect someday, ATGATT.
The damage is as follows...
Body: Double open fracture in wrist, contusion in lung, fractured ribs and collarbone, giant hematoma in thigh, 3 staples to hold my arm guts in, an ankle so swollen, red, black and blue that I still don’t believe it’s not broken, many misc. scrapes, cuts, bruises.
Bike: Totaled, check in hand for total loss coverage. Uh, yay…
Life: I have no FMLA protection from my job because I hadn’t been there a year yet. I’ll be fired and without insurance soon. Medical costs remain to be accounted for, we’ll see on that. I’ll apparently have permanent range of movement loss in my wrist, but oh well.
I was riding home from work. Same route, same traffic, same as the other couple hundred times. An underinsured driver (woohoo…) of many, many years waiting to make a left somehow floored their pedal (enough to jerk their car and skid, almost as if a perfect prop for me to slam into) and appeared in front of me, blocking my entire lane and some of the other. I had no time to do anything but t-bone it at 45MPH into a cozy deadstop. I don’t even remember the impact, only waking up on pavement surrounded by helpful people waiting on an ambulance in agony.
I’m so quick to take pleasure in pointing out… this wasn’t my fault… I didn’t almost die because of ME… but I did. I only had my helmet and gloves on, too lazy and too confident over the months to change out of my work/riding clothes twice a day. I trusted the competency of other drivers with my life. I am so, so lucky to be alive. I think this type of crash would have killed me 9 times outta 10 with the tshirt and shorts I was wearing.
It’s a hard lesson… a mistake I’ll never make again, and I will ride again with renewed respect someday, ATGATT.