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One bad turn
The day it almost ended was in reality a new
beginning
By Bob Schaller
Back on the road.
The middle of winter is interrupted by a late January week of Indian
summer, which in Colorado means 55 degrees.
Up from my house up a winding road that ends in two miles at the
Flying W Ranch, where the menu includes steak and potatoes and a
country band act that involves a healthy repertoire of humor in the
form of anecdotes and innuendo.
But this initial leg – the first of nine climbs – of my ride ends
where the steep part of the hill meets Vindicator, a street that
runs all the way to the interstate once it hits Woodman Road.
The foothills in the shadow of Pikes Peak couldn’t be more
beautiful. There is snow in yards and on several roofs that are
deprived of sunshine by trees.
After climbing my first hill since the start of winter ended my
90-minute daily rides, I debate between turning left and climbing
several small hills, or taking a right down a short hill on
Vindicator, and heading up the beast of them all, Rossmere, a
steep-mile long climb that I hope I still have the legs for. Even in
my car, I have to downshift into second gear to handle this
behemoth.
I
head down Vindicator slowly, cautiously, because the dirt on the
road set down by dump trucks to, in theory, make the roads safer for
the car of choice in neo-conservative Colorado Springs – the SUV –
is a cyclist worst nightmare. Well, next to almost any driver,
especially one on a cell phone.
As I get in the left hand turn lane, I have 150 yards before I turn.
I see a woman in a white sedan stopped at the stop sign. I have the
right of way, but that doesn’t mean a thing when you’re on a
bicycle. Being “right” still sucks when you go up against a
thousand-plus pound vehicle.
I
get closer, sitting up on my seat, one hand on my handlebars, my
left arm signaling my upcoming left turn. I always get queasy when
cars are at this intersection, so much so that I’ll travel the final
half down this hill and turn around and come back up just to turn
without risking it. But this woman who I can see has a companion in
the front seat has obviously seen me – maybe she’s a cyclist, too –
and is waiting for me. I’ll consider it a late Christmas present.
With two cars coming up the hill I time it so I can start to pedal
in the turn and gain speed to hit Rossmere’s steep incline with a
head of steam. I drop my arm and turn in front of the white car. The
woman, who I now realize was looking left while talking on her cell
phone, looks at me.
Time stops. But not for long enough.
Her mouth makes a big “O” shape and her eyes grow wide as her car
lunges forward. She has punched the gas and then just as quickly the
brakes. But I am in no man’s land. For the life of me, I
cannot say for sure if she has hit my back tire – I sense she has,
because I suddenly have no control of my bike – but I also swerve to
the right for just a split second to try to miss her.
The bike disappears beneath me. I feel myself sail off the left hand
side. I have no time to react, and my head – though I am wearing a
biking helmet – slams into the pavement. My face serves as the
brakes. I feel my ear squish like a sponge, and the area below my
temple crumbles as I am stopped by the curb.
And then, the lights go out. Fade to black. Scene over.
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When I come to, the white car is gone. A man is getting out of his
truck.
“I’m going after that bitch!” he says.
“No, no,” I wave him off. I’ve only been out, apparently, for a few
seconds, maybe a minute? I really don’t know. “There’s already one
person hurt here. There doesn’t have to be another.”
Two women get out of a car.
“Oh, god!” one says when she sees my face. I take inventory of what
works. My arms are fine, though the palm of my left hand is
partially torn up from the base to the middle of my hand. My right
leg feels like I’ve been punched, and I do see some road-rash on it.
But my left leg is fine. I’m breathing, but my mouth feels funny.
I feel like I have a couple of pebbles in my mouth. Out comes a
tooth, and part of another. Still, I
am able to push myself up, to sit on the curb.
“Call 9-1-1!” the woman orders to her friend, who has just gotten
out of the driver’s side of the car.
“No, no, I think…” I say. I don’t know what I think. Or how I feel.
“How bad do I look?” I ask.
“It’s bad,” the woman says. She has very kind eyes, and a soft
voice.
I
look down, and a significant amount of blood is falling from, where?
My nose, my chin? My mouth?
Her friend brings me bunch of napkins, the brown kind you’d find at
Taco Bell, it dawns on me.
“Your lip,” says the second woman, “is gone. And so is all the skin
above it.”
Because of the cold, I am wearing a hooded fleece under my helmet.
Since biking helmets are little more than saucers turned upside down
– a hockey helmet is what should be the standard – the fleece hood
has saved me, I can tell, from a lot more damage. But it is sticking
to my chin. And when I wrest it off, the real flood of blood starts.
“You need a doctor,” the one with the calm voice says. Her friend is
leaning against the car, holding herself up by her arms, her face
downward. Is she going to hurl? Because of me?
“No, I live nearby,” I lie. “I’ll be fine. I’m just going to sit a
minute. Really, thanks for stopping.”
They look at me. One says something that I don’t hear, and since I’m
not sure it’s intended for me, I thank them again. I’m losing a lot
of blood though. I’m wearing white tennis shoes I just bought from
Target, and they are covered from the toe up to the laces. My blue
and white USA Fencing sweat jacket has been splashed with a
patriotic red. All over.
The long-sleeved jogging shirt I am wearing underneath, which covers
the hand and obviously saved me from further damage, is torn, a
half-moon flap of material dangling. The shirt, I think outloud, is
ruined.
And then, just like that, I am alone, bleeding. My head hurts. I
remember watching Bugs Bunny when I was younger: So THIS is what it
feels like to get hit in the head with a sledgehammer. Then, it gets
dark again. My bike is done. Totaled, as they say when a car has
endured far more impact than it was built for. The left brake is
gone, the seat turned at a funny angle and torn. Both tires are
flat. Maybe the front one went flat, and that caused the accident,
because I could no longer turn after I adjusted to the car – I hit
the dirt and then hit the ground because the bike wouldn’t turn.
Does any of this matter now?
I
try to stand up, and then the darkness sets in. I feel the air leave
my lungs. The few things that hurt – and nothing really hurts that
bad – aren’t hurting any longer. The light fades as I lean back, and
I curl over, the cold pavement that broke my face now feels good.
And then I don’t hear or feel anything.
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“I think he’s dead!”
I
hear someone talking by me. Near me?
“He’s dead, do I call 9-1-1, Dad? Can you hear me, Dad? The police,
fire department?” he continues, panicked. “Oh, they’re both the same
number, just call 9-1-1? It’s that road by Walgreens, the one that
goes up to Flying W Ranch.”
Oh my God, I think. There’s been ANOTHER accident on the road since
I was hit, what, a minute, an hour, a day ago? And this one is worse
than mine? What is happening today?
The lower half of my face is in a pool of blood, and there’s
actually a noise as I try to lift up.
“Good lord!” the young man exclaims. “I’m calling 9-1-1. My Dad
said…”
“No,” I say, holding up my hand with the torn palm, scaring this
poor kid – who was kind enough to stop – even more. “I’m fine. It’s
just a couple of cuts. I’m fine, really. Just go on home.”
“School,” he stammers. “I…I…I’m going to school.”
“Okay, then, well, have a good day at school,” I say. “I live right
by here. I can just walk home.”
He doesn’t dial 9-1-1, but he doesn’t leave either. For reasons I
will never figure out, I start pushing my bike, and it is then I
realize my right ankle and right knee are hurt, but to what extent I
really have no idea. As I cross the road, a truck speeds up so I
have to hurry. My right knee hits the pedal on my slow moving bike,
which has two flat tires.
“Boy, that would really hurt if the rest of me wasn’t so messed up,”
I think to myself.
I
couldn’t accept the generosity of strangers, because of something
none of them could have possibly known: I’m a single parent, and my
11-year-old is at home, doing homework. This is our routine more
often than not, and while I feel bad leaving him at home, he
encourages me because I dropped from 200 to 150 pounds in just one
year cycling like this. I can’t have my son getting a call from the
hospital. I am all he has. And vice versa. Sure, his mother lives in
town and sees him for a half hour here and there.
My
brother is a deputy sheriff here, and my parents live down the hill
only about three miles away. But what if I pass out? What if I die
on the way to the hospital, or when I get there? I have to get home
and get my son taken care of first before I take care of this
situation I’ve created for myself. If it costs me my life, so help
me God, I will make sure my son is safe with my parents before I go
get put back together again. Even if it kills me. Tears run down my
cheek as I think of this. Why did I go out on the bike at all?
People say, “When you stop living you start dying.” Well, if you get
killed, you stop living too. For as cautious as I am as a bike rider
– and I’m even too cautious to ride in groups because I stop at
lights, always yield, go too slow down hills – I can’t control even
a single car driver.
I
have all kinds of time while I walk the bike down the hill toward
the road that leads to my house. It’s a good mile, maybe more, and
with every step my injuries are becoming more apparent. I try to pop
my clogged ears, and find I can’t move my mouth. Broken jaw. The
chin is bleeding and I can’t do anything about that. My upper lip is
tender, and I can taste blood coming off that. I wipe at my nose. No
blood. Finally, good news.
One more street to cross. The light changes and I am moving slowly.
I don’t make it across before the light changes back and a car
speeding toward me honks and steers toward me. I pick it up fast as
I can and get across the street.
I
have to walk down a paved walking path behind our house that runs
along an irrigation ditch to get home. Usually I’ll run into five or
six women, with a couple of them pushing baby strollers. This time,
thankfully, I see no one – or shall I say, no one sees the horror
that is suddenly me. The quarter-mile path ends at the street, and I
have to turn back and walk down the sidewalk to my house.
As I walk up the driveway, I notice there is blood all over me. I
can’t imagine how I look. I wipe off with the fleece, and then put
it back on, which generates pains I didn’t know existed. I put on my
helmet, too, but why I do that, I have no idea. I can’t get to my
house key in my left hand zipped pocket.
But the big white front door gives me cover, gives me a chance to
let my son know my situation before he sees the trainwreck that is
his father’s face. I quickly formulate a plan. And then I do our
coded knock. I hear my little boy come to the door, but I grab the
doorknob before he can open it.
“Wait a minute, bud,” I say, though the words are barely audible, I
am sure, because I can’t move my mouth to enunciate them properly.
“Dad’s been in a bike wreck, and let me tell you, I feel great. I
don’t look that good, but I look so much worse than I feel. In fact,
I really don’t feel bad at all.”
“Okay,” I hear the voice say. He opens the door, and I see a look I
can’t remember seeing on his face before: Fear. I have protected
this boy from bullies at school, teachers who played favorites, a
mother who I thought wasn’t a good enough influence on him,
strangers who cast an eye his way, dogs at the park who approached
us. But now, he is afraid, because of me.
“Hey bud!” I say. “I love you a whole bunch.”
“I love you too, pal,” he says, using his favorite nickname for me.
He looks at me, and takes his own inventory. I hear blood dripping
onto the carpet of our new, huge rental home. There goes the
deposit.
“Dad, oh no, I’ve got to call 9-1-1, just sit down, I’ll be right
back. I’ll get you some water,” he says, taking charge. I’m so proud
of him, I could cry. I get in the door, and lean against the wall.
My son is okay. I’m starting to fade again.
“Please bring me the phone,” I say. “I’m going to call Grammy or
Papa, or uncle Mike, and one of them will come get you, then I’ll go
to the hospital.”
He brings me the phone. My Dad, who I have never been close to,
screens me out because, well, that’s how he is. I call my Mom. She
is out running errands, she tells me, a half hour away.
“Everything all right?” she asks. “Your voice sounds all messed up.”
“I’ve been in a small bike crash, but I’ve broken some things and
I’m going to be needing some stitches,” I say.
“I’ll call your father and tell him to come get Garrett,” she says
as motherly panic sets in. “Give him five minutes.”
I
get to the downstairs bathroom, pull off the fleece, and look in the
mirror. Bad. Worse than I thought. Blood everywhere. I see a cut
that runs along the bottom of my chin, from one side, to another.
It’s a couple of inches long. Going to need stitches for that one.
My upper lip on the right side – my left as I face the mirror – is
gone. Plain and simple, it does not exist. Ditto for the skin above
it. The left side of my face is swollen in several places, in front
of my ear and down a little lower. Broken jaw. That explains why I
can’t really open my mouth.
I
get a wash-rag and hold it against my chin. It does no good, so I
pull it back. The skin is turned inside out. I try to turn the skin
back, but it won’t work.
My father pulls in the driveway. My son has his schoolbooks.
“Since I won’t be there long,” my son says, “I’ll just get my
homework done until you come get me.” My son is so optimistic, but I
want to believe this too.
“Good idea, bud,” I say.
My father gets out of the car.
“Get in the car, let’s go to the Emergency Room!” my father yells.
He is not good in the clinches, he chokes in the clutch, where most
of life's most meaningful battles are won and lost. Which is why I'm
a winner, and he is not, though this is of course is not something I
can point out now. I can
handle this far better than he could, or can. But for the first time
since I was a small child injured in a hockey game, my father is
actually concerned about me. It is touching, but I don’t want my son
to panic. Time to be cool. My son always brags to his friends about
how his dad is not afraid of anything. Time to again prove him
right.
“Nah, I’m really okay,” I say, slurring words,
squeezing what's left of the fabric on my left hand as the skin
opens up and blood seeps out. “Looks worse than it
is. I’ll take care of it. If you could just take Gboy for an hour or
so, I’ll come get him afterward.”
“Listen, I’m not dicking around on this Bob,” says my father, who is
also Bob though that’s all we really share. “You are really hurt.
Come on, let’s go.”
He doesn’t understand. This isn’t about me. It’s about this little
boy, for whom we both share a real love. He and my mother are great
with my son. The best grandparents. Ever. And I need that now. So does Gboy.
“Pick you up in a while bud,” I say as Garrett gets in the backseat.
I stay out front and wave with my right hand, so he can see that I’m all right.
Something is happening to my body. My right leg is suddenly
completely numb, and the torn skin on my left hand no longer hurts
even though the bleeding is visibly worsening. My head
is starting to hurt even more though, and I’m worried that this might be
the last time my son sees me. And if I’m waving good-bye, then so
help me God, I’m going to do it with a smile on this mess that is my
face.
I
get to the doctor’s office. For some reason, I feel a
tremendous relief; it's like I got my son taken care of, and now
that I'm near doctors, I'm no longer my own responsibility. I made
it. Still... I don’t have to ask anyone how I look –
their expressions say it all. Skin, and what looks to be a piece of tooth
or a white little pebble fall from my chin, and blood drip
to the floor as I stagger to the counter.
“Sir,” a woman says quietly, “your face – pieces of… of your face,
are falling on the floor. Why don’t you just sit down?”
I
lean against the wall, and gravity does the rest. Then, I am in a
ball on the floor. I am surprisingly not uncomfortable, though fear
is starting to creep in. I am fading fast. I hear voices around me,
and soon two, maybe three people are tending to me. I hear only
echoes, or like everyone is in a tunnel. Someone pushes on my chin.
Someone straightens out my left arm, and gasps, "Oh, God!" Then, I
hear the person who I think is the doctor, start yelling, and I see
boots and more shoes near and around me. I feel tears running down
my cheek. I wish I would have told my son how sorry I am for doing
something so stupid. And then, just like that, it all goes black
again, and while I am likely a big part of the activity, I'm no
longer involved, though I certainly hope it turns out well.
The day’s going to get worse before it gets better.
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