It’s not very often that a man gets to drive his adult son to school, so the day started off kinda strangely and then went from there.
The day before, Alexander had his tonsils removed. A lot of doctors these days recommend that they be left in, perchance to fight infection. But Alexander’s tonsils had grown to the size where they sometimes restricted his breathing. His tonsils were huge; I asked the doctor if we could keep them, let them harden and then use them for a round of miniature golf. (No, the doc said; they have to go off to pathology, where, presumably, they’re made into cufflinks and sold in Third World countries.)
Alexander actually had them removed at around 11:30 a.m. on Monday and then went to his 2 p.m. class. Since he was taking pain medication, he couldn’t drive and needed a ride. (I never missed a day of school from kindergarten through the end of college, and Alexander hasn’t, either. My daughter, Darlene, missed two days in the second-grade when she had chicken pox, so Alexander and I call her “the slacker.”)
The next morning, Tuesday, April 5, Alexander had a 9:30 class, so I dropped him off at the UA Cesar Chavez Building and then drove to the Circle K on Park Avenue and Speedway Boulevard to get a soda. I got the drink and a copy of the Phoenix newspaper, and went back outside. Just then, I saw a guy I knew, and I headed toward the gas pumps to say hello.
It was at that moment that I heard the screeching of the tires from the big Mercury Marquis that was heading west on Speedway. Then, in quick succession, I heard the Marquis plow into the car that was making a left turn onto northbound Park, and then glance off a car that was stopped on southbound Park.
I didn’t actually hear the Marquis hit the bicyclist, but I did look up in time to see the cyclist go flying through the air and land with a thud on the other side of the gas pump. After hitting the cyclist, the Marquis kept on coming, crashing over the curb, through the small bushes and then onto the Circle K property. The collision with the curb had bowed the tires outward, and the friction of the undercarriage on the ground quickly decelerated the car to a halt. (For the tiniest split second, I was afraid that it was going to come to rest atop the cyclist, but it ended up about 10 to 12 feet away.)
I went around the pumps to the cyclist, and it didn’t look good. He was lying face-down amid a growing pool of blood and was completely motionless.
Kneeling next to the cyclist, I first put my hand on his back to see if I could tell whether he was breathing, and then felt the side of his neck to see if I could find a pulse. Neither was successful. After what seemed like forever, but was almost certainly less than a minute, he did a little half-cough/half-spit. A small amount of blood came out of his mouth, and he began breathing. And then, unfortunately for him, he began to regain consciousness.
All high school coaches in Arizona have to pass a course on CPR and first aid. Plus, many, many pounds ago, I used to be a lifeguard. (Insert whale jokes here.) As he began to move around, I talked to him and tried to get him to lie still. I did a quick check on him and could see that one leg was badly broken, and the other one might have been as well. While there was some blood on his face (he was still lying on his abdomen, but his face was turned sideways), I didn’t see a huge cut.
The UA Police were the first on the scene, followed by the Tucson Police, then the Tucson Fire Department. I have to marvel at their coolness under pressure. They had him in the ambulance and on the way to the hospital in a very short period of time. One of his shoes had been knocked off in the impact. I retrieved it from the bushes, amid the mangled wreckage of his bicycle, and put it with his backpack. (No one in any of the cars was hurt.)
The cyclist hadn’t been wearing a helmet. He probably thought that was OK. Maybe he only lived a couple of miles from campus, and he took side streets, and anyway, what was he supposed to do with his helmet while he was in class?
I was thinking of going to visit him, but decided against it. If God is merciful, the cyclist won’t remember me or anything else from that awful day.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2011.
The cyclist will remember, when he reads this column that his friends will tell him about. While very well written, and I read the whole thing, isn’t there a different, less traumatic topic to write about? On 2nd though, there are good messages: “Wear helmets, you idiots!” and “Provide helmet lockers, U of A!”
Tom, thank you so much for this kind and sensitive article. Helmets should be worn and there are plenty of places, under a chair, over in a corner, etc….and if I had any idea I might be killed or brain-injured I wouldn’t even think twice about WEARING it EVERYWHERE so the ‘no room in the classroom’ idea doesn’t hold water.
I imagine you had some moments of major angst and contemplation (of something besides your navel?) after this event. I am grateful that you were on the scene. That cyclist will know who you are after this, I imagine. You are a kind human begin and I am grateful that it was you who tended to that young man. Bless you.
Mr. Small’s comment trouble me somewhat in that the biker(s) is the “idiot”. Yes, without a doubt all bikers should wear helmets whether traveling across the street or across the country. The biker is a victim. A victim of his choice to not wear a helmet, but also a victim of the collision of what sounds like an out of control car. Car… possibly 2000lbs of steel, bike and rider… maybe 175 lbs of flesh and a bit of steel. The article troubles me a bit due to Danehy’s reluctance to report the entire story. Was the biker at fault, was the driver on the phone? What were the circumstances. We get part of a story and hopefully there is a positive ending. The lesson we can only hope to harvest from this fragmented report is that bikers beware, and WEAR HELMETS! Use lights and reflective gear at night. Don’t trust drivers to honor bike lanes. It’s only a 3 inch stripe of paint. Bikers, SIGNAL, AND OBEY THE SAME LAWS THAT DRIVERS MUST OBEY. Drivers, please watch out for bikers. Don’t assume they can see you coming from behind. Don’t harbor contempt because they share the road. Attempt to display patience since you are in a heavy steel projectile, and the bikers are only a sack of human bones and organs. When we slow down and think of it, there are at least 2 victims in this story. Both the driver and the biker will experience physical and emotional scars for the rest of their lives.
Good job, Tom.
The man could just as easily have been a foot pedestrian injured in that kind of accident. Are walkers “idiots” for not wearing helmets around busy urban intersections? From the description of the injury mechanism, with sudden acceleration/deceleration and lower extremity injuries, a bicycle helmet may not have made any difference. Helmets do not protect one from broken legs and broken necks. Give the guy a break.
I’ve noticed that Danehy has the unfortunate tendency to ruin at least 1/3 of his columns with misplaced self-righteous indignation
Thanks, Tom, for for this informative and sensitive report. Usually all we would get would be a statistic if that. It reminds me that all of us could use some CPR and other “first-responder” medical training, and that encountering a situation like this can happen to anyone at the most unexpected time.
I wonder if any of the multitude of cameras that guard the U of A Architecture Department building may be able to glean information about the incident.
Every year 75 police officers lose their lives in automobile accidents. Every year 750 cyclist lose their lives in automobile accidents. Given the difference in miles traveled by the two this makes cycling 600 times as dangerous per hour as police work or 3000 times as dangerous per mile as police work. In most states a driver who hits a car in the rear is at fault in an accident. There have been cases where a drunk driver has hit cyclist in the rear and the police arrest the cyclist and not the driver. I have been hit 4 times. http://share.ovi.com/media/currentresident… in one case the police refused to investigate I later learned the driver Richard Thomas Guy had a nonexistent address on his drivers license. The DMV ordered the police to find this guy and arrest him. I can attest the university are corrupt they are currently under federal investigation for identity theft.
Six times as many pedestrians as cyclists are killed by motor traffic, yet travel surveys show annual mileage walked is only five times that cycled; a mile of walking must be more “dangerous” than a mile of cycling…” The proportion of cyclist injuries which are head injuries is essentially the same as the proportion for pedestrians at 30.0 % vs. 30.1 %
Bicycle helmets decrease the possibility of head injuries where the bicyclist has fallen off of his bike. They are designed for 14 mph and 3 foot drop impact. They prevent 85% of possible brain injuries in “normal” falling-off-your-bike type accidents; a very good statistic. They are not designed for automobile accidents. This seems to be a false premise that if any bicyclist in any accident had only been wearing a helmet, he would not have sustained an injury. Wearing a helmet is a good proactive health precaution, but they cannot prevent all types of injury and a person wearing a helmet can still break their neck in an accident or sustain traumatic brain injuries.