I work in the IT department at MS State University and live close enough to campus that I usually ride home for lunch on my fixed commuter. Yesterday I left campus for lunch heading west in the bike lane. A block before my turn, a Nissan SUV passed me slightly and made a right turn with no signal onto a side street and cut me off. I do have a front brake, but I was cruising near 20mph so I could not stop. I hit right behind the rear passenger wheel, I flew up and to the left and the bike went to the right. I hopped up pretty quick and thought I was ok with just a little road rash. The 20y/o student driving got out and was already crying and she said "I saw you but I thought you were farther back." I was thinking, "Why didn't you look?" My left arm was starting to throb a bit and I could not get my mess bag off without help from a bystander. 911 was called and the fire department made it there first and checked me out. All of the damage was on the left side and seemed minor, scraped knee (through pants!), scraped elbow, and a wrist that felt super sprained. I kept my left arm stabilized on my helmet. The police and ambulance were not far behind. The paramedic checked out my arm and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. I knew my arm was not working so I went. Me and the bike got to ride to the hospital in the ambulance. My wife was at work, lucky for me she is a nurse at the hospital and could come down to the ER to see me. Anyway the xrays confirmed that I had a fractured left radius right at the wrist. I was splinted up and sent home.

This morning I visited the orthopedic and got the option of a 6 weeks of cast and iffy recovery of motion or surgery and better recovery. I picked the surgery, a open reduction and internal fixation of distal radius. This afternoon I got a copy of the police report. No ticket for the girl, but it was indicated that she failed to yield. The diagram of the incident is pretty accurate too.

Today I have used my own medical insurance and paid co payments out of my pocket. Tomorrow is the surgery so I'm not going to worry about anything. My question for Friday is what should I do? Call my medical insurer first? Call her auto? Is her auto going to pay for the damage to my bike? I just need a direction to get started in.