Bike v. Car

This past weekend Jeffrey and I traveled to Abilene for my sister’s graduation from high school. We were able to leave on Wednesday because the doctor who Jeffrey has been shadowing gave him a couple of days off of work. We drove down on Wednesday and on Thursday morning (in an attempt to drop a few pounds before a beach vacation with my family) we decided to work out a little. Jeffrey wanted to run, but I had been eyeing my mom’s new bike that she got a few weeks ago. We split up and took individual workout paths.

Unfortunately, mine led to an intersection where I was hit by a car. Like most accidents, I’m sure that decisions by both myself and the driver led to the collision, while corrections by both of us could have resulted in the avoidance of the accident. Suffice it to say that I was riding on a 5 lane road when a car stopped at a lighted intersection. I continued to drive straight (across her lane) after she stopped, but was shocked when I reached the midway point in front of her car and she started to make a right turn into my bike.

I still cannot explain how the actual fall occurred. I remember trying to “stiff-arm” the car with my left hand as it came near me (and my left shoulder felt the soreness from that the next day), and I remember falling pretty hard on my right elbow and left knee, but I cannot understand how I got off the bike without being hit by the car on the left side of my body. Perhaps my mom’s (now broken) new bike saved me, because its wheel well was significantly bent, the wheel spokes were dented, and the left handle bar was turned at a 90 degree angle.

After I fell, I took stock of myself and realized that I was not hurt badly at all. I knew I had scratched several places and would be bruised and sore the next day, but I was relieved to find all my bones intact and extremities attached; however, right at that moment a nurse who had seen the accident on her way to work ran over and advised me to lie down until paramedics arrived to check my injuries. I felt silly lying there on the pavement, feeling completely fine, but as it turns out, the nurse was wise to tell me to wait.


[Above: A gross bruise on my leg from hitting the bike, and a picture of the hurt bicycle. I refuse to put the picture that Jeffrey took of me in the hospital--I was pale, wearing no makeup, and hadn't showered after my workout. I heard the nurses saying they would have to burn those sheets after I left.]

When the paramedics arrived, they came to much the same conclusion as I had about my lack of bodily injuries, but they noted that my blood pressure had dropped to a very low level (80/30—normal is 120/80) and my heart rate was very high. My body was going into shock from the sheer surprise of almost being run over.

I had wanted to decline a trip to the emergency room, but after fainting when I tried to stand up, the paramedics insisted that I be checked by a doctor. I went to the ER and the doctor became concerned about internal bleeding when my pressure stabilized but my heart rate continued at about double the normal rate for several hours after the accident. He checked my abdomen with a CT scan, but found no evidence of bleeding, and so about 6 hours after the accident, when my heart finally slowed to a decent rate, he released me to go home and recuperate.

I spent most of that day and the next day resting and alternately thinking of ways the accident could have been avoided (What if Jeffrey hadn’t gotten off of work until Thursday? What if I had decided to take a different bike route? What if I had turned one second earlier?) and thinking of how much worse I could have been injured (What if the car had pinned my leg against the bike? What if the hood had crushed my hand and I couldn’t become a dentist?). Then I said prayers of thanks to God who somehow got me safely off that bike and away from the car (either by divine intervention or by creating in us quick, protective reflexes) and then provided me with a nurse, a doctor, a husband, a father, a mother, a sister, a brother, and a group of paramedics to help me back on my feet.

Perhaps the most tragic part of this entire story is the fact that my poor father drove up on the site of the accident without knowing I was ok. The nurse who I mentioned earlier had asked if she could call anyone for me, and I had told her to call my dad (because my mom was at school and Jeffrey was running, and thus without his phone). Even in my state of shock from the accident, I had the awareness to tell the nurse, “Call my dad. Tell him ‘Lauren is ok, but she’s been in an accident.’ Tell him in that order, please.” When he showed up a few minutes later, I figured he had gotten the call and all was well—it wasn’t until later that I found out he had not answered the call (since it was an unknown number) but instead had happened to drive that direction to do his errands, seen the ambulance and fire truck, then seen my mom’s mangled bicycle, then seen me lying on the pavement. Poor dad! He probably needed to ride in the ambulance under surveillance with me after that shock!

Normally this blog is a fun and quirky little rendition of the happenings in our lives—of course, this post has not been the most cheerful or the funniest, so I’ll leave you with this story, which is the only amusing part of the entire “accident day.”

I had never had a CT scan before, but I had studied them in school, so I sort of knew what to expect. The radiology guy provided me with a little description before he started the test. This is what he said to me: “The CT scan is like an X ray machine that takes X rays from all sides to make a 3D image. We have to inject some iodine to create a contrast on your organs. The iodine gives different people different reactions. Some people experience a hot flash-like symptom, some people get a metallic taste in their mouths, some smell a funny smell, and others feel like they are peeing in their pants, but they’re really not. No matter what reaction you have, it should cease in about 60 seconds.”

After this little speech, all I could think of was, “Man, I hope I don’t get the ‘wet your pants’ symptom.” The guy injected the iodine…


...and I felt like I was wetting my pants. Just my luck.