Here is an account of a local accident on one of my regular routes. Actually, there were three people injured in two separate accidents at the same location this weekend. It almost makes me want to just stay on my trainer. Here was the worst of the two accidents:
Karen, Mark and I were on creek road heading south when we were hit.
Karen and Mark were planning on doing a hundred miles, while I was
aiming to be back around 10. Because those guys were doing a lot more
than me, I told Mark I would pull along creek road at a moderate pace.
We came down Broad Run from Coatesville and went through M arshalltown.
We reached the intersection of 162 and N Creek Road at about 10 minutes
before 9 o'clock. Plenty of time to get back to Wilmington as from
there the ride back is mostly flat along the river. As I suggested, I
pulled down creek road at a moderate pace, so we were single file. When
we got to the right hand turn near Lenape (by the soccer fields), we
were pretty much together. I turned the corner and Mark and Karen fell
in behind me single file. I don't recall who was directly behind me but
I do recall looking around to be sure everyone was together, and then
dropped to my aero bars.
As everyone knows, the distance between the right hand turn and the "T"
intersection by the Brandywine Picnic Park is not very far. There is an
entrance to the picnic park before the intersection. After this
entrance, there is a guard rail on the right hand side of the road which
I believe runs up to the intersection. The road here i s an ever so
slight uphill as the Rt 52 bridge terminates on this side of the river
at a high enough elevation to allow cars to drive under the bridge in
the parking lot of the picnic park.
I was in the front with Mark and Karen single file behind me (again not
sure who was directly behind me). As is my wont -- and much to the
dismay of many in this group -- I was far to the right. I was
approaching the intersection, past the entrance to the picnic park,
along the guard rail section of the road, when I noticed a mini van
coming from the opposite direction had crossed the double yellow line
aiming for us. What happened next and what went though my head probably
took less than a second. My first thought was that the diver would
correct this, as I had seen this before. Instinctively, I moved even
closer to the right, even though I was almost on the white line as it
was, and there was precious little room left. I then noticed that the
driver was not taking any corrective action. My second thought was that
the driver was intentionally aiming for us, that is, playing chicken.
Contemporaneously with my second thought, or perhaps, milliseconds
later, he hit me. At this point I was abreast of the rear of the van.
I suspect that my left arm, which is fairly swollen but not cut, hit the
very back of the van. I did not go down. The next thing I heard was
the driver slamming into Karen and Mark. Ultimately, his vehicle
continued along the guard rail, across the entrance to the picnic park
and came to rest - disabled - on the other side of the picnic park
entrance. I stopped and while still on the bike turned my head back.
Both Karen and Mark had been launched over the guard rail and were lying
motionless down the embankment perhaps 20 to 30 feet from the road and
10 or more feet below the surface of the road. I dismounted, turned and
began to run backwa rds as fast as I could. The severity of this
accident hit me like thunder and lightning: Seeing them at the bottom
of the embankment that far away from where they had been, I knew was
severe; registering the severity and calling 911 took a few seconds. I
stopped got my phone out of the seat bag and called 911 while coming to
a good point to jump over the guard rail and down the embankment.
(Unbelievably, the 911 operator did not know where we were.
Unfortunately, there are 3 locations with the coordinates I gave her. I
was still trying to explain our location when I reached Mark. I kept
yelling Lenape Park, the Picnic Park, etc.)
At some point, I believe perhaps before I jumped the guard rail I became
cognizant of Karen's painful cries. I assumed Mark, still motionless,
was dead. There were some people either already with Karen or running
toward her. I knew I had to get to Mark and give him CPR as I saw no
one headed in hi s direction, and as I went toward him I yelled at the
people with Karen to give her CPR if she needed it. When I got to
Mark, I discovered he was breathing and amazingly did not appear to be
in shock. His eyes were fluttering and I truly did not believe he was
going to make it. At about this same time, while talking to him and
attempting to keep eye contact and keep him alert, I noticed gaping
holes in his head and thigh that were bleeding profusely. My next
thought was that he would bleed to death. The head wound looked to me
like it went through the skull. At this point, people began popping out
of no where and I was handed some t-shirts to put pressure on his
wounds. One of these persons was a Ken Pearl, an EMT and Nurse, who is
a full time employee at the picnic park. He was on the scene quickly.
He and the other EMTs that attended to Karen and Mark were absolutely
professional. Doing their job without hesitation; calm, cool a nd
collected. I wanted to go over to Karen, so I asked someone near by to
take over the keeping-pressure-on-the-wound duty and without blinking an
eye whoever it was did so. I went over to Karen who was clearly in
shock and a great deal of pain. Her only visual external injury was a
gaping leg wound; surprisingly it was not bleeding like Mark's, but
someone had pressure on it. At first, she did not recognize me, but
then muttered my name, which gave me some comfort. The EMTs were
arriving by this time and shortly thereafter two separate helicopters.
I don't know how long it took before both Karen and Mark were airborne,
but it seemed like a long time.
There are few accidents that one can look back on and come to the
conclusion that absolutely nothing could have been done differently to
avoid it or mitigate its consequences. This is one of those few. Mark
and Karen were sitting ducks. They were riding on the right side of t he
road with a guard rail to their right. They weren't in the middle of
the road; they weren't on the wrong side of the road; they didn't run a
stop sign or red light. They were obeying all traffic laws. They
simply had no escape route for a driver so blatantly negligent. Even if
their last thought before being run down was to pull to the left, I
doubt that would have helped. Once the mini van hit the guard rail, it
was guided by the rail to its resting point and, in the process, taking
anything in its path, i.e., the south bound lane, with it.
I, like some of you, have been riding these roads on and off for 30-35
years (my first bike ride to Lenape was when I was 13 or 14). I have
never had a car come this close to me before or been involved in an
accident like this. Although I don't believe that this is less likely
or more likely to happen in the future, one thing is for sure: The
roads we ride are far more crowded every day and drivers have far more
distractions such as cell phones, hand held devices, etc., which do
in-fact, in both cases, increase the probability of these types of
accidents. That was the case here as the young, inexperienced 19
year-old driver told me as I yelled at him "What the f__K were you
doing?" He said he was not paying attention as he was attempting to
pickup a dropped bottle in his car. It is clear that he did not have
his eyes on the road as he took no evasive maneuvers. The arc of the
path his van took never altered.