A carnival of technology

I got hit by a car.

Ok, that’s out of the way. Friends and family, please calm down. I am not seriously injured, and I will attempt to answer the questions now burning in your minds forthwith.

As you can probably understand, I generally try to stay off of Roswell Road, but sometimes it’s just so damned convenient that the temptation is too great. I don’t think it’s a bad road in the right frame of mind. Those freaking drainage grates are some serious hazards, but I can keep up with most traffic when traveling south from north of 285, so I have no qualms about taking it in light traffic and riding in the middle of the lane. I learned my expensive lesson, and I don’t mess with those grates. Those things are bad news.

So I was riding home tonight, and I took Roswell Road. It was late and dark, so I thought this the best decision. My alternate route, winding around through Sandy Spring Circle and that terrifying downhill run on super-narrow Lake Forrest or whatever it’s called, besides being longer, I thought would be more dangerous in these conditions; it’s poorly lit and has that longish stretch down a crowded two-lane road. Roswell Road has lots of light and lots of lanes, so I take that, I get home quickly, I don’t get run over and everything’s copacetic. That was the plan. I actually had a bad experience on Mount Vernon earlier in the same ride—some douchebag in a gray Suburban tried the old pass-and-turn-right trick on top of me, and that used up all of my swearing. Wide Roswell Road looked pretty appealing.

I was cruising along Roswell Road around Hammond when some prick in a BMW (I don’t actually know if he’s a prick, but he does drive a BMW and he did hit me) turned into the Whole Foods parking lot. That’s great and all—Whole Foods isn’t really my thing as I’ve mentioned before, but if that’s what you like then go for it, man—but he apparently didn’t look very hard, or else he would have seen my headlight coming along down the road. Seriously dude, I was wearing a safety orange shirt, riding along a well lit stretch of road and had a big white light on my front. I understand that I should view every event as my fault in the interests of my own survival, but I’m not sure how I could have handled this one better other than having an intense distrust of any cars in the turn lane. I thought he had stopped, so I didn’t have time to brake when it became clear that he hadn’t, and dude hit my rear wheel. I went tumbling out into the road, hit quite gracefully (no scrapes!), and, still moving with my downhill momentum, rolled over (breaking that stupid blinking light on my belt) onto the sidewalk. This was where I found that I couldn’t walk.

The BMW pulled into the parking lot and got out of his car, and two people nearby also stopped to help. One was a man dressed in a suit who looked kind of lawyerish. I thought maybe he was an ambulance chaser or something just based on his clothes, but he didn’t offer me a business card or anything, so I suppose not. Maybe he just likes to dress fancy. The other part in this scene was played by a nice young woman who asked all the questions you’re supposed to ask when you find someone lying in the road and offered me a cigarette. Mr. Fancy Pants called 911, Ms. Nice Lady tried to comfort me and ensure I wasn’t in any immediate danger, and I was fuming and cursing and discovering, as well as demonstrating, that I couldn’t put any weight on my right foot. The car came at me from the left side, so I guess I messed up my foot on the way down. I’ve been keeping the clip on that foot (my non-chocolate foot) tighter lately, so I probably gave it a good twist. Meanwhile, Mr. Prick got me an ice pack and tried to figure out what was going on. I don’t know why he had ice and ziplocks with him. He was dressed like he just came from the gym.

911 was slow to answer, but the police were very quick to respond. Yay incorporation? Senior Officer Joseph Simone arrived at the scene, took everyone’s information (Ms. Cigarettes was not a witness to the event, but Mr. Fancy Pants was and seemed delighted to repeat that I was keeping up with traffic), and very kindly waited with my bike while I went to the hospital in an ambulance and Sean (thanks again, Sean) came to pick it up. I hope he didn’t have to wait too long. I think I’ll get him some kind of gift card after I regain some more mobility.

The experience with the paramedics was a little bit weird. An ambulance showed up at about the same as the Sandy Springs Fire & Rescue truck, and the EMTs shooed the first responders away after I answered a couple of questions and made it clear that I wasn’t about to die. Things were pretty casual after that. One EMT wanted some kind of splint with a foot piece, but the other EMT said they didn’t have any like that, so they mangled something together with a piece of a foam-coated cardboard and a couple of ace bandages. It was up to me to awkwardly scrabble my way on and off of stretchers while someone held up my bum leg. I think one of the guys was a trainee. Portly experienced EMT dude stuck an IV thingy into me (after complimenting my nice veins) in case the hospital wanted to inject me with something (they didn’t), and trainee dude tried to insert the catheter. He didn’t do a very good job, so portly guy finished it up and gave trainee a lecture on catheters on the ride to the hospital. I was asked which hospital I wanted to go to. There were no sirens or flashing lights, we obeyed all of the traffic laws, and I was pushed into Northside as a casual code 3.

After signing my name to three four different forms (sorting out the insurance on this one is going to suck), I got x-rayed, waited around and wondered about what parts of the pain scale my foot was passing through, and eventually got examined by some doctor who poked me and prodded me and listened to my heart and did all of those doctory things. He started out the conversation by asking if I’d had any trouble with that foot before, which I thought was a bad sign. Turns out I broke my ankle. Maybe. A little bit. Doc wasn’t super-sure, but it looked like some kind of fracture and I have a splint and crutches just in case along with a scrip for some Vicodin which, if it’s the same stuff they gave me in the hospital, isn’t going to do a damn thing. I’m supposed to see an Orthopedist to get this all sorted out. My foot still hurts like hell, mostly around the heel, and crutches really suck. I have no idea how I’m going to get around anywhere.

Mobility is going to be hard. I’m taking off work tomorrow since I can’t drive very well or sit down for a long time (this entry is being written in multiple sittings, honest injun). I tried driving down to the mailboxes, but that didn’t go very well. It may have been because I had the parking brake on. I need to go the UPS center tomorrow to pick up a package before they send it back. This one is my external Seagate hard drive that decided to fail about three months into its five-year warranty, and I waited until now because I bought some new shaving supplies again (an alum block and some Proraso cream, which is super-nice), but UPS left those latter two at my door instead of leaving more notices. I might just call a cab. I hope I can get some sleep.