cait opp

A week ago tonight I was hit by a car while riding my bike.  When the car hit me, I went over the hood and hit the windshield and my bike was thrown away from the car.  I didn’t hit my head hard (luckily I was wearing a helmet anyway) but my legs took the bulk of the impact.  When I rolled off of the car and into the street, the woman driving got out, quickly and absent-mindedly asked me if I was ok, and then ran across the street to frantically chase down witnesses to insure that she wouldn’t be liable.  My bike was mangled, I was bleeding and swelling and I had no way to get home.  I was too out of it to call an ambulance or even the police and somehow I let the lady (and her family, who were all in the car) drive me home with my mangled bike hanging out of the back of the trunk.  I got home, realized that my ankle was swelling and starting to throb as well, and went to the emergency room.  I waited for 4 hours, didn’t see anyone, and went home.  The next day, I went to Health Services at Pratt because no one had yet been able to clean any of my wounds.  While the nurse was scrubbing through my cuts and bruises, I started to pass out from the pain and watching her scrub into my thigh, so she made me stay and drink Gatorade for 45 minutes until my blood pressure was high enough to take a car service to the emergency room at New York Methodist in Park Slope for X-Rays. I found out that none of my bones were actually broken, that I had deep tissue bruising and needed to stay off my feet for a while until I could walk properly.  Today, a week later, I can walk but it’s still very painful.  At this point, I’m just trying to get over being afraid of literally any car or bike that passes me and loud noises have started to make my heart race.  Either way, biking was something that became really important in my daily routine and while I’m afraid to be out on the road once my legs heal, I’ve missed the exercise and having the space to get away from the computer and clear my head.  Most importantly, I realized how dangerous riding a bike is in NYC even if you ride in bike lanes (which I was doing when the car hit me speeding through a left turn in an intersection.)  Unlike most of my friends, I always wear a helmet and after this accident, I have all the more reason to believe in continuing to do that.  While I got pretty beat up this time, I could have been so much worse.  There’s no excuse not to wear a helmet, despite how “uncool” it is.

A week later, my ankle is healing, my bruises are spreading out and slowly fading but each day I feel more and more lucky that I didn’t experience something much, much worse.  Limping around isn’t so bad when I consider what could have happened.

(The photo above is from last Thursday, before the bruise spread to my whole thigh.)