Pay Attention or Pay the Price

Frustrated, hurt, embarrassed…you name it, you’ll feel it after a dumb accident like this

Here is a short video clip of me heading home. I’m about to pull off into the Zoo entrance and wait for traffic to clear so I can cross Water Street. It is a maneuver I make almost every day on my ride home. Except on this day, I wasn’t paying attention. As I looped up the drive, I was looking backwards at traffic, not where I was going. I misjudged the turn and grazed the curb, all with disastrous results.

The spill looks almost comic in its simplicity, especially since the camera is always looking forward and sees what is about to happen (unlike me, obviously). Another six inches of pavement and there would have been no problem. But there wasn’t and I had a date with gravity, the curb and the grass.

The trouble was, as I went down, my ankle (the one you see extreme and close up) gets caught and, yes, gets fractured in the fall. Looks like I’ll be off it for at least a few months.

So, a few seconds of inattention and there is my cycling season shot. As is a series of back country canoe trips and pretty much anything else fun I was looking forward to doing this summer. Sigh.

A big thank you goes out to a couple of drivers who saw me go down and came to my rescue. One, a paramedic, checked me over and gave me the good advice to get it checked at the hospital. In the other car was a group of women heading out for a kayak run who, kindly, loaded me in their car, my bike in their trailer, and then ran me home so my wife could take me to the hospital. It was all a painful blur and I never got their names, so if they happen across this, thanks again.

I pondered about posting this. It is, after all, a very embarrassing clip. But it is a good reminder about how our rides and our lives turn on a dime and how we, first and foremost, are responsible for our own safety.

I’ll have lot’s of downtime to ponder this.

Ride safe.