A week ago I was on my way into town when a car pulled out from a junction right into the road in front of me, I tried my best to swing left around him rather than hit the bonnet but didn't quite make it, I hit the rear drivers side window smashing it into a million pieces. My collarbone followed through hitting the solid area above where the glass once was and I flew over the top of the car and landed flat on my back behind it. The driver got out and started shouting about how it was my fault and that I'd have to pay for the damage, he then said that he was more concerned about making sure I was ok and pulled his car over across the road out of the way.
A few people were on the scene by this point and within a minute or so they informed me that he was driving off, I assume he spoke to a guy who was parked in the bus stop and saw the whole thing and realised that it was actually his fault and not mine. I didn't really care because I'd touched my collarbone and realised that it was not in great shape. An ambulance just happened to be passing so there was no waiting about, I told them that my collarbone was broken but that the rip in my jeans was a lot worse than the graze underneath it. In the ambulance they took a look at it and told me it was a teeny bit worse than a graze then pumped me full of morphine, sweet!
I was attempting to go straight on as demonstrated by the red arrow, the witness in the bus stop is in green, the driver is in blue. The dashed line shows how I tried, in vain, to avert disaster.
A point-of-view shot of where it happened, the van is where the dude pulled out, you can see here how tight the corner I tried to get round actually is, I didn't stand a chance :-(
Just before I was put on the stretcher and bundled into the ambulance.
Morphine+gas=mongsville
Right clavicle, 4 pieces
The 'graze' on my right thigh required 3 stitches to put the muscle back together and 15 on the outside, gross!
I was stitched up and given a shit, useless sling and sent home to return 2 days later to attend the fracture clinic. After a four hour wait on the Monday I got in to see the doctor who said that I would probably need surgery and that I should come back on Wednesday to see the specialist (who agreed). So tomorrow I go in to have a plate installed, I already have 2 in my left forearm and really don't want any more but it's for the best.
I spotted this whilst having my leg cleaned, is it a sign?
Waiting for the specialist offered a perfect opportunity to shoot 'self portrait with x-ray'.
The driver has been traced, I don't know anything else about that and I don't really care, a solicitor will deal with him. Until yesterday I was very firmly in the 'shit happens' camp but now I am pretty pissed off about the whole thing, I am growing more bitter as the pain gets worse I think. Why do so many fucking drivers go about the place without really paying any attention to the bloody road??? I'm sure nearly everyone reading this will have at least experienced being scared whilst riding because a driver is useless, it's unbelievable how bad some people are at driving! Thats by the by though compared to the fact that this dude did a runner, I was actually involved in a hit and run! Thats the kind of this you see on The Bill or C.S.I not Llangyfelach Rd at 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, how dare this guy drive his death machine in front of me, pretend that he cared then fuck off???
You see, a year ago I'd have been flat on my back in the middle of the road cursing him for not finishing me off and putting me out of my fucking misery, I have suffered with bad depression for the last 10 years and been plagued by an unescapable fixation with death and how and when I will die, and what is there after death and what is the point of life just to die and everything I did became extremely difficult because it meant NOTHING.
No amount of medication or psychotherapy will ever cure me but since I started cycling 10 months ago I have been the happiest I have ever been, the bike offers me a freedom that I have never experienced before, I can go where I want, when I want and which ever way I want, my mind is clear when I ride, no matter how bad the weather or how steep the hill or how bad the driver I have no once though of dying whilst riding. And now I can't ride, I can sit on my arse and ruminate about life and death again with no escape from my own mind; skin and bones heal but I have wasted far too much of my life crying and shaking and screaming in fear of the knowledge of my own mortality.
This fuckwit has taken away my happiness and I am really pissed off, I am going to be wheeled into theatre for this operation fucking shitting myself that I will be anesthetized and not wake up, I may be faced with something or nothing and the not knowing is killing me. I know it is going to be fine, I will awake to months of physical pain and mental anguish and for the first time in my adult life I welcome that now knowing that I can, in fact, be happy.
I know what you are thinking. The bike is fine.