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.