Keep Spinning

So just before the Turkey Mountain mountain bike race in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I had warmed up a bit on the bike path, but then decided I’d like to stretch the legs a bit on the hill out on the street.

On my way back from the hill, I was riding South on the street and noticed a grey, primered Trans Am type car coming North. There was a side street I was coming up on on my right. The Trans Am stopped in the road. He didn’t have his blinker on, but since he was stopped it looked like he was going to turn onto the side street.

I always assume that drivers do not see me, so I slowed down and tried to make eye contact with the driver. The overcast sky or the shape of the windshield, something made it so I couldn’t see the person’s face. I was still moving forward so I figured he was treating me like any car and was going to let me continue the way I was heading, and then make the turn behind me. I started to pedal again.

A split second later, I realized he was moving towards me. I tried to think of a way out but all I could think to do was to hit my brakes. In those slow motion moments, I sort of envisioned it all ending with me plopping lightly over onto his hood… since I had slowed, and he had been stopped. It is amazing the impact that we actually had.

I remember a loud thud and a whack to my head, then I remember landing on the ground. My first thought was to stand up and make sure I was ok. I started to get up but there were voices yelling at me to stay down. That sounded like a good idea too so I just lay there on my stomach with my forehead resting on the back of my hands. I could see and feel the warm, thick blood running down my face and across my nose. I could see it saturating my gloves.

A female voice asked me what my name was. I told her. I’m not sure what else I was asked.I looked to my left and peeked out. I could see the car and the windshield. I asked someone if the window was already broken and they said no, that I had broken it. The whole driver’s side of the windshield was crushed, though not broken through.I could see a little bit of my bike in front of the car so I asked how my bike was. Someone said it was not going to make it.

I don’t know what order everything happened in, but at some point I know a woman was lying on top of me. (Stacy McLeod) Both to probably keep me from getting up as well as to keep me warm. It was a very nice feeling. One, I didn’t have to decide whether or not to keep trying to get up.. and two, she was really warm.

I remember someone saying “Paula, it’s Kim.” and telling me the ambulance was coming. I wasn’t sure which Kim until later. (It was Kim Rieck) I heard the word “ambulance” and thought “wow, I really don’t want this to be bad enough for an ambulance… but I guess they always have to be cautious.”

While I was laying there peeking out I noticed a guy with a camera stoop down and shoot a photo right at my face. I gave him a thumbs up and said “thank you.. we may need that later!” I know that some people think photographers can be too intrusive. I know as a photographer, I often worry about being intrusive… but my thought is that some things you just can’t go back and shoot if you need them.. and you can always throw them away if you don’t. When in doubt… shoot it.

A few minutes later, I heard the car that hit me start up. It had a low rumble to it. Immediately, I heard several voices yelling “no no no.. Do NOT move that car!” Later, someone told me that a group of people had grabbed the guy and his keys and thrown the keys into the crowd. How awesome is that? I tell ya, if you’re not in the biking community, you may not understand what a touchy subject cars vs. bikes is. But I can only imagine what would happen to a guy who hit a cyclist and tried to get away.

It seemed like the ambulance was there within five minutes. I remember my helmet being taken off and I remember an attendant taking scissors to my jersey. I said “ohhhh that’s a brand new jersey. I just got it this morning.. do you have to?” She told me that the jersey was already trashed. I said “ok”.They asked me if I could stand up. I told them I could if I used only my right side. So they turned me so I could put my weight on my right leg and they steadied me as I got up. As soon as I stood up, there was cheering and clapping from the crowd. What a great group of people!

The ride to the hospital was short and rough. Once there, an attendant asked me if she could take a few photos of my head. She said it was “impressive”. I told her no problem! By the end of the day the word “Impressive” had been spoken by every single person who came into my room I think.

I think the accident happened at 10:05am.
I was in the ambulance at 10:37am.
By 12:30 I had been x-rayed and Kim was keeping me company in ER.

After a bit of a wait, I was taken to get a CT scan then wheeled to room 11 where I waited for the PA (Sabina) to come stitch me up.Kim waited with me for a while. She took a few of the first gory photos; then we were told there were others who wanted to check on me.

Only one person could come into my room at a time, so up next was Bobby Smith. He came in and we talked for a few minutes.. then the gauze fell off my forehead and he kind of winced… then he said “Could they not find the rest of it??” LOL That’s what he SAID. What I HEARD was “Good God Man, where’s the rest of her face?!?” LOL. I already knew it was bad. I’m just teasing.. you didn’t freak me out Bobby.

After a bit, Lonnie Cooper came in. It was so funny how fascinated he was with the stitching process. He took several more photos and kept me company while the stitches were being put in.

The stitches to my head were finished up around 5pm. I still needed stitches in my cheek/temple area. Kevin Smith came in for a while and held my hand through the local anesthetic shots to my face. I received 8 stitches to my cheek.

All this time I had been laying on a very hard board and my back was really in pain. The nurse came in and we asked her to get the board out from under me. She also noticed at that time that I had not been given anything for pain. She gave me a dose of Morphine then. That took the edge off of everything.

A few more stitches to my left arm and I was pretty much done… for a grand total of 122 stitches.

It took a bit of doing to get up and get dressed. Just sitting up on the edge of the bed had the world spinning and me sweating rivers… but when they wheeled me outside… the air felt sooo good!

Kevin and I had carpooled down to Tulsa, so he drove us home. We got back to Wichita around 10pm. My son was a bit freaked out. I had called him and told him a little of what happened and told him that I looked a lot worse than I was. He is 17 and has been a big help since I got home.

For the most part, I’m pretty mobile. My whole left side is banged up and my ribs and back are very sore. It’s hard to get up and down; but I am TOTALLY blessed that this was not worse than it was. I will probably need plastic surgery on my forehead later; but otherwise I think I’ll be healed up in no time.

I will be at Keystone on the 13th to take photos. Not sure when I’ll be on a bike again since that’s really dependent on when I can put a helmet on.

I want to thank everyone who has sent me so many emails and called me in the last few days. The amount of support has been overwhelming!

I’ll write more later.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 7:33 am and is filed under Main Blog, The Accident Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.