Was on a leisurely ride along the Esplanade ( SA sth Glenelg ) was taking it
pretty easy given the heat. Locals would know that the espy is divided by
the Somerton pk sand dunes and so I was cutting back to the espy at som pk
westwards to turn right at the life saving club and north to Glenelg on the
espy.
Coming up to the espy a guy passed me and I would say as he turned the
corner I was maybe 50m back.
When I eventually made the turn, this guy was nowhere in sight and I though
whoa he's going for it...crazy bugger in this heat. After a second or so I
see this body on the ground and it takes me another few seconds to
register...hey he's stacked it.
When I get there this poor bloke is on his back, 4m the other side of a
(crazy) curb, bike on top of him and in real pain. He was able to speak and
could move his head about etc..but he wanted help up and it quickly became
apparent he had a serious leg or hip injury.
What do you do? Couldn't move him myself and he's lying on asphalt that got
to be 60deg+. I gave him my water bottle raced back to the surf life saving
club (30m) and rounded up a life saver and pretty soon (<3mins) there was an
army of people pouring water on the ground and towels and brought some
umbrellas etc, and they radioed for the ambo's, who took quite some
time...maybe 15-20 mins, no doubt had large call list today. Lying on that
asphalt would have sucked big-time, notwithstanding the injuries he had.
As the ambos lifted him on the stretcher I caught a glimpse of his leg,
nasty. Reckon it was broken mid way between the hip and knee.
So what happened....? Well I can only speculate as I did not actually see
him go down but given the position he was in and the fact his bike was on
top of him, he hit the curb which sticks out at about 45 deg from the
footpath and flipped sideways landing on his right side, highside style.
Pedalling hard head down, looking at some chic, adjusting something, any
number of reasons for not realising the curb was there. Lapse of
concentration? Maybe. Recently the council made alterations to the Somerton
south Glenelg esplanade making it a one way road ( in two halves ) South is
one way to the nth and vice versa for the other section. A reasonable
decision. What they also did was to take the beach half of the road and make
it angle parking and between these and the footpath is a gap which I guess
is the old parallel park width. This also is not so bad. What is absolutely
crazy along this section is the concrete curbs which jut out to half road
width, painted white so they look like lines at a glance and when there are
few cars parked along the espy, they are very easily missed. I have very
nearly hit a few. Half way along there is a roundabout which has concrete
curbs at one entrance, crazy..I forget about it each time I come to it and
have to grab a handful of brakes. One section has a gap between the angle
parks and the footpath, like a bikepath but it seems to have no purpose at
all, but you can ride along it but then ...whoa watch out at the end for the
concrete.
Anyway, I had my digital camera with me today so I took a snap discretely
for this chap and left details. This also reinforced with me the need for
Ambulance cover and carrying some id with you.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has something to offer on the
esplanade alterations, I know loads train along there every night.
Cheers
Homie
BTW Great work Somerton SLSC and a few locals.