Friday evening, September 7th, exactly 10 weeks to the day that I fell and broke my arm, John was in not one, but two bicycle wrecks. The first accident was a result of road rage…a guy in a pickup truck passed John (who was on his bicycle) and yelled at him to get off the road. The guy proceeded to pull in front of John, slam on his brakes (yes, we do have a lot of Tennessee rednecks here), jump out of his truck and storm back toward John.
Meanwhile, John could not stop his bike fast enough. His front tire wedged under the rear bumper, his arms hit the tailgate and he flipped into the truckbed. Behind John, a lady in a van witnessed the entire incident. She jumped out of her van, yelled at the GOB (good ole’ boy) to stay away from John and called 911. By this time, John had climbed out of the truckbed and pulled his bike out from under the bumper. The GOB jumped in his truck and drove off.
Somewhere in the mix, after the GOB fled the scene, Knoxville’s finest showed up as did John’s son, who heard about the wreck from a friend of his who happened to drive by. John and the witness provided the police with the license plate number but Knoxville’s finest claimed the number was incomplete so they could not trace the plate and would not file a report.
We think John was quite shaken at this point because he decided to ride his bicycle home to check for damage. So, about 30 minutes after the original incident, John’s bicycle blew out and he wrecked again….this time he landed on the pavement, hitting his head, left shoulder and hip. This wreck was a direct result of hidden fractures in the frame and damage to the front tire that occurred in the first wreck.
We spent the evening in the ER. Aside from a mild concussion (thank heavens for helmets) and lots of scrapes and road rash, x-rays indicated that his collar bone was broken in 2 places and twisted at odd angles. Lucky for John, he has a high tolerance to pain so, although very crooked looking and walking, he is doing okay. He will go under the knife tomorrow to have a plate inserted to straighten the bone and allow it to heal. What had been planned as a very active fall will now turn into a social fall…oh well, that’s not half bad!
