As many of you already know, Ricardo "Rico" Palacios, a bike messenger at Apple Courier, was critically injured on Thursday, November 3. He has been in intensive care at Washington Hospital Center in a coma since then. He was put on a respirator this past Monday. His situation, frankly, does not look promising.

To add yet another layer of tragedy on top of this, the insurance company that should be paying his medical expenses and disability payments may well deny this claim. The company's position is that there is no way to prove this claim, as Rico is completely incapacitated and unable to communicate the circumstances of the accident. As yet, no eyewitnesses have come forward. Thereis a need to loccate an eyewitness to this accident and do so very soon.

Rico's accident occurred sometime just before 5:00 PM on Thursday, November 3, 2005. He was most likely near the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and K Street, NW or somewhere en route to that location from 19th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW in DC. There would have been literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people in that area at that time. Surely at least one must have seen something and would be able to recount the circumstances of this accident for the insurance company.

Libby is turning to you for help. Please ask your friends, co-workers, neighbors, anyone at all that could have been in the area of Rico's accident if they witnessed anything. It should be noted that Rico's mother, an immigrant working as a housekeeper at the Capital Hilton, having to not only suffer the tragedy of possibly losing her only son, but also then be laden with outrageous medical bills.

Contact information is below; she can be reached on the Apple phone numbers 24 hours day.

Elizabeth "Libby" Francis
Customer Relations Manager
Apple Courier, Inc.
Washington, DC
phone: 202-338-0930 toll free: 888-620-3300
fax: 202-338-7600
email: info@applecourierinc.com or libby@applecourierinc.com

Word is on the street, and we've been asking around.

He's still not receiving visitors.

Rico is a really, really great guy. You may know him as the guy who rides a pursuit bike w/650 front, always smiling. He's a part of the community, coming out for meetings and races, and is friendly to everyone. He is already missed, and we're all hoping for the best and keeping him in our thoughts.

i've heard about this and will continue to ask around everywhere I can.

its a dangerous time of year apparently.
we should all keep our eyes open and ride carefully
but ultimately, anything can happen, at anytime.
its a cold, cold world out there.

/suffering

I have know Rico for over 10 years. I hope he recovers. However, this looks bad for him. He used to ride way out into VA on his fixed gear. He was usually a very nice person.

I remember he asked me if he should run that small front wheel and I told him no. He hit me in the face and did it (ran the small front wheel) anyway. I dared him to hit me again and he wouldn't. This went on for about 10 minutes, me taunting him. And him not taking the bait. Good times. That pretty much ruined our relationship, but I didn't hate him or anything. I certainly wasn't the easiest person to get along with in those days. I would still say hi to him would I would see him around. I am very sorry that I won't be seeing him randomly on the trail anymore.

He rode bare headed and I can't help but wonder if a helmet would have saved he and his mother from this fate.

actually, he no longer works on his pursuit bike. He rides a pista concept for work now.

he was bare headed at the time of the accident. latest is, he got hit in the back of the head thursday evening, probably with a sideview mirror. he did a few more tags, went home. the next morning, he got up and began to feel the effects.

this is why there was no police report, no accident scene, no wittnesses. scary stuff.

i want to say this, from my first aid training:
head injuries are deceptive and can have a very slow onset. if any of yall recieve a blow to the head, go get checked out.

Well I'm glad he saw the light as far as riding big wheels goes. I saw him on his pursuit bike about a month and a half ago. Potholes eat small wheels, and that low position keeps you from seeing over vehicles.

I know K street quite well and this just reinforces the idea that we need to take the lane (there is no shoulder). I would speculate that something like that would happen due to lane sharing. In DC, I no longer share lanes. I always take the whole lane.

Of course I realize this is all rationalization to the effect of this couldn't happen to me. Of course that isn't really the case, I am vulnerable out there too.

i hope y'all saw the post on the alleycat thread about the fundraiser race for him...
saturday dec 3

if anyone needs a place to crash, i offer up my tiny apartment.
please come.

Man, this is really sad. I always used to see him on my way to work riding through Dupont, just chilling with his bike or taking it all in. I noticed he had recently started riding the Pista and asked him about it.
What a nice guy, all of my wishes for his recovery. I work right near there and will ask around if anyone was going home that way and might have seen something.

Just curious;has anyone checked for security camera footage? There's prolly a good number of buildings around there with security cameras,plus there may be ATM's. May take a bit of legwork to check out all the possibles,but there may turn out to be video evidence of what happened.