Saturday, November 24, 2012

never a dull moment

Tuesday the Contraption Captain and I are in the local emergency room, soaking up that special emergency room aroma of pain and worry.  Although we both rode our bicycles to the hospital (possibly because we are nuts) it was not a bicycle accident that brought us in and for the record, we are both fine, in fact as time passed we became increasingly fine while sitting there, him in the hospital bed and me on one of those hard plastic chairs and the finer I got the more I had time to look around our small curtained area.  I got a little bored.

First I sanitized my hands several times with the automatic Purel foam dispensor.  Then I sanitized the Contraption Captain's hands.  Next I very carefully (no touching) went through the cabinets behind the bed and checked out the various tanks (oxygen or oxygen?  We'll take oxygen ...) and computers.  There were no sharps in the sharp dispenser and no trash in the trash can.  They had one of those test your reflex hammers but I've played around with those things a lot and the thrill has kindof gone.  I resisted experimenting with the nifty check-your-ear tool although I was definitely curious.  Then I sat in the plastic chair for a few minutes, momentarily non-plussed.

Two beds away and across the room someone, a woman from the voice, was behind a curtain having a time that was less fun.  This person had been in an accident of some kind, they had cuts and abrasions some of which were deep enough to require stitches and cleaning.  I first thought the person was an old woman who had taken a fall.  A man with ridiculously colored hair was pacing around making phone calls.  I thought that the injured person was his mother.  The person in the bed was not old though, they were more middle-aged and the guy was the person's worried and unhappy husband.

I totally get "not my business" so I returned to playing with the adjustable bed until I distinctly heard someone say that the person had been hurt by a car door.  My ears went up.  I mouthed "car door" at the Contraption Captain.  "Do you think it was a bicycle accident" I whispered.  "Well not too many pedestrians get injured by car doors" he returned.


 The woman had bicycled to school with her two children, had dropped them off, and had been bicycling back to her house when someone had opened a car door in her face and knocked her down.  She had been cut up in the fall, her knee and face and arm all had needed stitches.  Her collar bone had been broken in the fall, an injury that the nurse said generally did not require medical attention, they heal on their own, but her collar bone had been broken in such a way as to require surgery and so they were going to ship her over to Stanford for the repair.

As the medical team got ready to move the woman one of the nurses aid "well I hope that the person who hit you will be more careful in the future."  The woman's husband said grimly "We know who hit her" and then he added "It's one of her friends.  She's going to feel awful when she finds out about this."

So hey yes, if you are driving a car think before you open the door on the street side.  The bicyclist you hit might be someone you know.  To update an old phrase, "open your car door in haste, repent in leisure."

6 comments:

  1. Wouldn't it be simpler, and a whole lot cheaper, just to ride outside where doors hit you and ignore any irritation from motorists not liking a cyclist riding in danger?

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    1. Me? I'm against blaming the victim. I think it's very affordable to peer into one of those convenient side mirrors before opening a car door. Another attractive idea would be to have car doors open on the other side. That way if you opened your door and stuck your foot out in front of a bicyclist your foot would get cut off. Problem solved.

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  2. Personally, I like to spend my free time in medical suites looking for bike supplies. Those latex gloves go into the flat-tire-kit, they're excellent and they keep the hands quite clean. Fix the flat, dispose (properly and dramatically) of the glove, hands clean, good to go, and with the admiration of your fellow cyclists who wish they'd thought of it. Bio-Hazard stickers: put a few on your stuff, nobody messes with your schwag bag.

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    1. I will not miss this opportunity again. The dispose of the gloves properly bit especially is pure genius.

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  3. I'm against blaming the victim too. In California, it's the legal responsibility of the driver to not interfere with the path of a cyclist by opening their car door.

    I hope the driver received a nice citation and a point on their license from the Palo Alto police along with 'feeling awful'.

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  4. Good gawd! Three posts in one week?!? My cup runneth over! You are going to spoil us with this exuberant blogging! (Hint: Please do!)

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