Sorry for more 'bad news', but I was so shocked by this story, I wanted to share it with the Forums.
It was sent to me via a cycling list-serv by a local cyclist.
(The location mentioned is out in the country, on a 55mph 2-lane divided highway)
I was biking down to Pittsboro yesterday (Saturday) morning to help with a Habitat for
Humanity building project through United Church of Chapel Hill. I went through Chapel Hill and down
Smith Level to 15-501. I wouldn't normally ride on 15-501 at all, but I figured that south of Smith Level
Road at 8am on a Saturday it wouldn't be too bad. In fact, traffic wasn't bad and usually there was a bit
of a shoulder to ride on.
I was coming around a gentle curve . . . I think between Taylor Road and Andrews Store Rd (anyone
know if Andrews Store Rd. / 15-501 is where a big, newish Exxon station is?) . . . when the car coming
the other way gunned its engines, crossed over the yellow lines, and headed straight for me.
My thought for a second was, "Surely, this guy (I say guy generically, because I didn't notice anything
about the driver) is just trying to scare me and will swerve back. By the time I realized that no, he
wasn't, there wasn't a whole lot to do. His left wheels were already on the dirt and he was coming
straight at me. I was still thinking, "This isn't really happening," but I did start to swerve to the right to
try to get out of his way. 25mph + maybe 55mph didn't give me much time. I thought perhaps I was
going to make it.
The very left front corner of his car hit my left ankle, which was at the top part of the stroke. It
shredded everything over the top of that big round bone on the outside of my ankle and broke a little
bone in the side of my foot. They pulled plastic shards of the turn signal light housing out of my
ankle at the hospital. However many milliseconds later, probably simultaneously, my left thigh sheared
off the guy's driver side mirror AND the front of his car smashed through the back of my bike, ripping the
seat stays and chain stays off the down tube and tearing the wheel out of the frame.
I landed in the dirt, and before anything else, looked to see him skidding back onto the road, touching his
brakes a bit, and then heading off towards Chapel Hill. Then I looked down at my leg. My cycling shorts
were torn away and through a perhaps 8 or 10-inch gash in my thigh a big fist of thigh muscle was
bulging up into the air. My left shoe had been torn off and there was bloody grass underneath my ankle.
Though several cars did drive by, despite my frantic waving, two eventually did stop and the people in
them were very helpful. I grabbed my cell phone out of my backpack and called 911, where it took
several rounds of clarification before the operator understood that I had been on a bike ("Sir, are you still
in your car?"), was now not, and that I was looking at the inside of my leg. I didn't know very well how
to describe my location on 15-501, but eventually assorted fire, ambulance, and state police arrived.
Nice people got me to UNC's E.R. and I received excellent care there. I asked the surgeons how they
got my thigh back together and apparently a med student shoved the muscle back down into my leg,
another doctor/resident pulled the skin together, and a third doctor winched the skin back together with
some very heavy gauge wire.
I have to talk to the State Police again tomorrow, but they generally don't seem interested at all. All he
has written on the report for the other person is "unknown," when in fact he had the mirror, color, and
probable make of the car (sand/brown colored 4 door American sedan . . . he thought, based on the
mirror, perhaps a Ford . . . I though Buick or Oldsmobile). I'm not sure he got in contact with any county
sheriff's departments or local police or did anything to try to move forward with the task of figuring out
who this hit-and-run ******* was. There's not much of a police report (yet) to turn into a news snippet.
MY POINT: I'm not sure. I can't be positive that this was done on purpose. I don't have many clues. My
thigh and ankle are pretty screwed, though not permanently. Probably 6-8 weeks before they come out
of their assorted braces/casts/etc. and I can start some physical therapy. I'm incredibly grateful for the
few inches that saved my leg and perhaps my life, especially with a wonderful wife and a baby due in 2+
months. I wonder if riding in pairs is always safer? Be careful out there, because there are whackos
who will not only yell at you and thrown *$#& out the window at you, but will actually try to end your
life.
MY QUESTION: Anybody have any good ideas about how to pursue this / who to contact? I know one
person who hired a private detective after a hit-and-run bike accident and actually found the person that
way.
Mmmmmm . . . Oxycodone . . .
Peace,
Drew