The trick to surviving such a potentially disastrous collision is to have something else take most of the impact for you. In my case, that something was a ten-speed Huffy bicycle. I was foolishly trying to cross a major road just beyond the crest of a hill, not realizing at the time that I couldn't see, or be seen by, oncoming traffic for more than about ten yards. Even so, if I had pedaled harder and tried to dart past the cars instead of hesitating and belatedly braking, I probably would have avoided the crash by a slim margin. The same hesitancy that made me a bitter, academically underachieving and socially inept high school student very nearly got me killed.
Maybe my title is a bit deceptive, since the taxi and my body never actually impacted. Its bumper hit the rear wheel of my bike. Nevertheless, there was enough momentum transferred to send 230 pounds of 15-year-old Anark flipping and flying through the air like a slippery salmon from the paws of a clumsy bear. I never lost consciousness. Hitting the ground on my side several yards from the cab, I rolled onto my back, managed to rise to one knee (and to think those paramedics thought I was paralyzed!) and kept trying to stand up. Hesitant and bitter though I may have been, my survival instinct was strong, and it never occurred to me to lie still and wait for help like a good victim should. Unable to see well without my missing glasses, the only thought in my adrenaline-fueled mind was to get to safety at the side of the road.
A crowd gathered. I remember looking up at strange faces, hearing voices asking me who I was, where I was, eventually telling me to put my head there and don't move, we're taking you to the emergency room. I protested. Yes, I'm hurt, but I'm not dying, give me some respect! My protest was ignored, as I was immobilized and placed in the back of an ambulance.
They stuck a needle in my arm and told me I was in shock. To hell with the shock, I thought, as the wrenched muscles of my right lower back convulsed in protest of their forced immobilization in a disadvantageous position. The pain was orders of magnitude greater than anything I'd experienced before. Even as I write this, my attention transferred temporarily to the dull ache that permanently lingers in that region, I remember vividly the agony I experienced that afternoon, exacerbated by the knee-jerk response of the paramedics who were motivated more by fear of malpractice lawsuits than alleviating the pain of the real injury.
Upon arriving at the hospital, I was determined to be out of life-threatening danger. Unfortunately, I was a minor, and without the consent of my parents, they couldn't so much as move me except to save my life. So I lay there in agony, my requests for free movement and pain relief denied by physicians to whom the almighty dollar was more important than the Hippocratic Oath.
Finally, after apparent eons, my mother arrived. I was freed from the bonds of legality, transfered to a gurney and wheeled into another room, and told to roll over onto the table to have x-rays taken. This from the same institution that, ten minutes earlier, had regarded me as "paralyzed until proven otherwise!" The pain was, unfortunately, too great for me to appreciate the irony. I somehow managed to follow their instructions, and after the procedure was sent to yet another room to wait patiently, talking wearily with my mom as the intravenous painkillers did their work.
The results were negative. My spine was fine, as were my kidneys and liver and whatever the hell else they x-rayed. There was only, as they put it, "a lot of soft tissue damage." I sat up (very painfully) and managed, stubbornly, to transfer myself to a wheelchair without assistance. Looking back, I can see that the influence of my mother's Hemingway books that I spent my childhood reading had truly risen to the occasion that day.
I went home that night, but couldn't walk right for about a week. There were no further medical services; the hospital just sent me on my merry way. The next morning, I looked in the mirror and saw that my lower back looked like an iodine-stained biological lab sample. Nearly black in places, and fringed with malevolent-looking reds and blues, it was quite swollen as well. My mom, who had medical training, advised me to put a heat pad on it, since cold wouldn't do any good this late. The discoloration gradually faded after a couple of months, and a few sessions of physical therapy restored muscle function to the point where I was able to run again (a year later, I was lifting 350-pound weights).
My back was working fine again, but the swelling refused to abate. I consulted a surgeon, who diagnosed a massive hematoma and recommended draining it and collapsing the pocket. He also told me what I had suspected before: had the injury received the proper treatment from the beginning, I probably wouldn't have had the occasion to see him. I underwent the surgery and awoke with my back nearly flat once again. It soon began to refill with fluid, though, and the surgery was repeated six months later, this time with a drain installed in my back for two weeks after the operation, and an irritant used to encourage the walls of the cavity to scar together. For the most part, it worked, though my back will never be perfectly symmetric, and will always be painful to some degree.
So, what lesson am I trying to impart with this long-winded tale? Don't be dumb. Non-motorists have to be just as careful in traffic as drivers. And if you must learn things the hard way, a bicycle to shield you from the collision's full impact certainly isn't a bad idea. It probably saved my life. Wait until you're eighteen, also, or else you'll just be fed to the beast of bureaucracy without the right to fight it.
I was never hit by a car, but I sure came quite close.
I was a volunteer deputy sheriff working a detail at a Greek festival in East Pittbsurgh (a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA).
The festival was organized by a Greek Orthodox Church. I worked that detail for many years because I lived on the street where the festival was held, and because both the priest and the members of the church were extremely nice people, so I was happy to protect them.
The festival was across the street from the church, which meant people were constantly crossing the street. This was very dangerous: It was a small town street, but most cars got there from a major highway just several hundred yards away, still feeling it was OK to drive fast.
One of the festival's feature was a Greek music band, as well as Greek dancers dressed in traditional Greek costumes. Truly a wonderful festival (plus, of course, they served delicious Greek food).
My work consisted mostly in traffic control. On one hand you had the drivers coming at high speed off the highway. On the other, you had drivers going on to the highway. These drivers were not speeding, but many weren't looking at the road. Instead, they were looking to their right, watching the dancers. Many of the speeders were not looking at the road either. They were looking left, watching the festival as well.
And, of course, there were the people trying to cross the road, completely ignoring my instructions to wait for me to stop the traffic for them (quite frankly, it gave me special satisfaction to spend one week of each year stopping those inconsiderate speeders on my home street).
Many times, the only way for me to regulate the traffic was by standing in the middle of the road, waving my flashlight, blowing my whistle, and dancing. Not to the music, but dancing to stay safe from incoming traffic that was not watching.
One evening, there was this driver who should have known better (i.e., he was a senior citizen). He was coming from town, moving toward the highway. His windows were unrolled. The car was full of passengers. Everyone in the car, including the driver was looking to their right, watching the dancers, not the road, let alone me.
Worst of all, the car started moving left, straight into the incoming traffic. And right at me who had nowhere to jump. I yelled and screamed, but the driver was so into the dancers and the music he apparently "did not hear me" even though his windows were rolled down.
Finally, I hit his car with my nightstick. That woke the driver up. He looked at me and swung the wheel to safety. I screamed: "Are you trying to kill me, Sir!?" The driver did not reply. Instead, he quickly sped up and drove away.
The man almost hit and killed me. Yet he did not have the decency to at least say he was sorry. He was lucky I did not have a radio on me (since I just walked there directly from my appartment instead of driving downtown and getting a radio). If I did and called for assistance, he would probably have been arrested. Had he stopped and apologized, I would certainly let him go even if I had the radio on me.
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