Hitting the Pavement

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I had a little accident on my morning commute today. Don't click on the photo album links if you're squeamish.

Since I'll have to tell all my cycling friends about it anyway, I figured I'll just tell the story in a blog post.

On the uphill side of the low-level Spokane St. bridge (3 miles from home) I overtook my coworker Diane on her bike. I slowed and chatted with her to the crest of the bridge, where she told me to go ahead. So I sped up on the downhill side of the bridge. The bridge has a good separated bike path that cyclists use. The bike path then takes a circuitous route that was obviously not designed by someone who had ever ridden a bike since it goes way out of the way to circle under the bridge and then make several right angle turns to cross a couple of branches of an industrial road. Instead, fast riders ride straight at the intersection of the bottom of the bridge, sideways across a wheelchair curb cut and then continuing east on Spokane St. My buddy Jason and I do this every day on our commutes.

I may have been going a little faster today because it was gorgeous out and there were no vehicles around. Regardless, I somehow hit the transition from the sidewalk to the street wrong and lickity split I was going down. I remember tumbling and trying to just go with it. Then I remember what felt like endless pavement going by my eyes really fast. It felt like I would never stop sliding. I was probably going between 25 and 30mph when I crashed.

Obviously the sliding eventually stopped. I was pretty dazed and had the wind knocked out of me. But my first instinct was to get out of the middle of the intersection. I grabbed my bike and dragged it and myself over to the weedy area on the corner. It took a while before I could breathe and even then deep breaths caused stabbing pain.

My coworker Diane was not far behind me when I crashed and she witnessed the whole thing. She reports that I did a couple of "cartwheels". I suspect my front wheel dug into something and I went over the bars. She stopped, very concerned. I told her she should probably call an ambulance. I suspected I had a fairly serious chest injury - maybe broken ribs. My breathing was constricted by pain in the area of my lower rear left lung.

The fire department showed up quickly. The station is just at the west end of the bridge. They checked me out and put some simple dressings on the more obvious wounds. By then I figured I didn't need an ambulance. Diane and the fire crew waited while Carol arranged for the neighbors to watch the girls and came to take me to the hospital. That probably took about 25-30 minutes from the accident.

The ride in the car was kinda painful. Bumps gave me stabbing pains in the back of my lung. But we got to the ER at Swedish Hospital soon enough. I had great care from the ER doc and a technician and nurse. They took chest and elbow X-rays and a urine sample to make sure I didn't have kidney injury. The Tech (Brett, a cyclist who is riding RSVP - Ride Seattle to Vancouver and Party - tomorrow and was disconcerted by having two injured cyclists in the ER at the same time) did a great job cleaning out the deep laceration in my left elbow - it had bits of road embedded in it. They numbed it so I only felt tugging while he was doing it and no pain. Then the doc examined it again and decided not to suture it because it will need to be able to drain freely.

The X-rays showed no broken bones in my chest or elbow. And no kidney injury either.

The crash happened about 8:45. I got home from the ER at 12:40. Lots of waiting in the ER, as usual. Got to listen to a couple of patients with mental problems ranting about various things in adjacent treatment bays. Had a National Geographic that kept me occupied. Plus I used my camera phone to get some photos of the damage before it was treated. I didn't get the scoop on the other injured cyclist I saw walk into the lobby just as I was going back for treatment.

By the time I left the hospital the chest pain was getting worse. We dropped off the painkiller prescriptions at the pharmacy drive-through. It hurts to lie down, so Carol wrestled the glider from the living room downstairs to where the TV is. That's pretty comfortable for me. Carol will have to go back to pick up the prescriptions, but I had some big ibuprofens left over from when I got my dental implant so I took one of those. That made a big difference within about 20 minutes. The doctor tells me the pain is going to be a lot worse tonight and tomorrow and then start to improve, but at the moment I'm having a little pain holiday.

The firemen took my bike back to their station since we didn't have an easy way to carry it without the bike rack on the car. We have to go retrieve it later. I'll have to have it checked out thoroughly by a shop for damage. All I remember is the handlebars are cocked sideways and there is a scrape in the bar tape near the left brake hood.

By the way, I may have been the cause of my own accident. For years, there has been a "temporary" traffic sign post in a 55-gallon drum full of dirt that was positioned very close to the wheelchair ramp I was crossing when I crashed. It was annoying because one had to slow down to avoid it before riding off the sidewalk, and sometimes people would throw road debris in it (like pieces of lumber) that would stick out over the bike path. There hasn't been a sign on the post for ages - just an empty post in a barrel. A month or so ago I stopped on the way home and moved the barrel off into the weeds on the other side of the path. That cleared the way for a faster approach to the sidewalk/street transition. Perhaps I reaped what I sowed today. I'll be taking that transition with a lot more caution in the future. Unfortunately, it sounds like I'm going to be off my bike for a week or two. The doc says this chest injury can take a month or more to feel normal.

At the hospital, Carol noticed some black spots on my fingers. They were little embedded particles of asphalt (the place I crashed was repaved about two months ago). Inspired by having just seen Iron Man, I guess, Carol asked if any superheros were associated with asphalt. We decided I would be Asphalt Man. My superpower is my rough skin - I rub the villains vigorously and give them road rash.

I've been riding a road bike seriously for 10 years now, and commuting year-around for two and a half years. This is only my third spill (one was caused by a car). That doesn't seem like too bad of an average to me.