cycling
28. Dezember, 18:25 Uhr
**TL,DR:** Before you are hit by a car, I recommend you maximize your auto uninsured/underinsured, know the name of a good cycling lawyer, ride with some sort of emergency beacon, wear your helmet, and be prepared for the fight of your life with insurance companies.
Throwaway account since my main account has enough information that I can be identified and honestly, with how much my city hates cyclists, I do not really feel like getting hate messages on my regular account (happens every time when I stand up for cyclist rights on my local subreddit). However, if I can help just one person, this post is worth it. Additionally, I am from the US, so not everything I say here will apply to people in other countries (or even other states).
A little backstory. I have been riding bikes for 35 years and have done it all, raced BMX, XC mountain, gravel, and road. I generally ride a minimum of 6,000 miles a year, of which a good chunk is in and around the very large city where I currently reside. I have many, many thousands of miles riding in urban environments and have ridden in pretty much every major US city and most major European cities. Riding in any urban environments has an inherently higher risk, but my city is notorious for not enforcing any traffic laws, which makes it that much more risky. It is truly a Mad Max situation. Just given the sheer number of miles I ride, I had been hit numerous times before this crash and I have no doubt I will be hit again.
In spring 2021, I was hit broadside by a young driver speeding through a red light at 40-50 mph (speed limit was 25 mph). I was riding in a marked bicycle lane and my light had been green for a while, so this was not a case where someone was trying to beat the yellow and failed. Out of habit, I looked up the road to make sure all the cars were stopped or stopping at the red light (a habit I developed many years ago that has saved me many times). Unfortunately, this driver was going so fast, I did not look far enough up the road to see her. There is another intersection right after this one, so I turned my attention to that intersection, which is the last thing I remember. I had a total of five surgeries spanning almost 20 hours on the operating table addressing life threatening injuries. I then spent three weeks in the hospital (half in the ICU) and another two weeks in a rehab hospital. After that, I had in home PT for two months and then out patient PT that I am still attending. When people ask what injuries I had, I joke that it would be faster to say what was not broken, punctured, and severed.
I’m going to break the rest of this post into two parts. The first part is what I think one should do before/after a major crash, especially one involving an automobile and the second part will outline my recovery. NOTE: I am not a lawyer and anything I say here is from my experience and should not be construed as legal advice.
**Part I: What I did/wish I would have done to prepare and what I did after I was hit**
* If you have an automobile, max out your uninsured/underinsured coverage. The state minimum car insurance where I live is an absolute joke. In my case, the other driver’s auto insurance only covered about 1.5% of my total medical bills. I had to rely heavily on my uninsured/underinsured coverage.
* Before you need it, identify a lawyer to help you. If your area has one, find a lawyer who specializes in bicycle crashes. Save their information and have it handy. My lawyer helped us navigate the insurance nightmare and has negotiated a settlement with the insurance company that I would never have been able to do on my own. Yes, lawyers are expensive, but let me tell you, when you get that first rejection letter from your insurance company and you are looking at a close to 7 digit medical bill, that lawyer is worth every single penny (more on this below).
* Insurance is not your friend (Part 1). Insurance will use any excuse not to pay. The police department in my city “does not investigate auto accidents” and the police report was an absolute joke. What was written in it is not physically possible, the location of where I was hit was wrong, and even the driver and the one witness the police interviewed had vastly conflicting stories. At no point did the police ever attempt to interview me. However, this one piece of paper was the catalyst for all insurance companies involved to deny my claims.
* Insurance is not your friend (Part 2). I have really good medical insurance (by US standards). Since I was hit by a car, the medical insurance initially refused to pay for any of my medical bills since it was classified as an "automobile accident." I’m not going to go into great detail here because it will make a very long post infinitely longer, but I needed a lawyer to navigate this. Depending on your insurance, they will possibly come after any money you collect from either your insurance or the driver's insurance company to cover what they outlaid (called subrogation. See u/07030 comment below for a more detailed explanation). Having a lawyer deal with this nightmare is worth every single cent you pay them.
* When riding, have some sort of tracking that someone who is not with you can see (Strava Beacon, Garmin LiveTrack, etc). I was initially riding with a friend and I was hit shortly after separating from my riding partner. I was by myself when the crash happened. My Garmin head unit sent an incident alert to my wife and then she was able to track me to the correct hospital using Strava Beacon (there were four hospitals all about equal distance away from where I was hit).
* Ride with cameras. I usually ride with a Go Pro, but this particular day, I was running late meeting my riding partner and I did not put it on. If I would have had video footage showing the police report was wrong, it would have helped my lawyer tremendously and probably settled the insurance mess faster.
* Wear your helmet. Wear your helmet. Wear your helmet. If you remember nothing else from this post, remember this: WEAR YOUR F’ING HELMET! If you can afford a bike, you can afford a helmet with MIPS or similar rotational-energy technology (SPIN, WaveCel, etc.). I was told my survival rate would have only been 10-15% if I had not been wearing a helmet (by wearing a helmet, it increased the survival rate to about 60% on account of the other injuries I sustained).
* Make yourself visible to drivers. There are plenty of posts in this subreddit with details on what to do. On the day I was hit, I had flashing lights on both the front and back, bright colored jersey, and a hi viz helmet. Yeah, you might not look as cool as you would in an all black Ralpha kit, but I feel this setup delayed the inevitable as long as possible
* Your homeowners/renters insurance might help with equipment replacement cost. Before you need it, check with them. For me, I had a replacement rider on my renters insurance policy that basically allowed me to replace items with brand new items instead of giving me a depreciated dollar amount. I was able to get a brand new bike that I would not have otherwise been able to afford (as well as replacing everything I was wearing that day and all the accessories on my bike). Make sure you know the time frame to file a claim. I only had 6 months and since the recovery was so long, I didn’t file until 5 months, 3 weeks and almost missed out.
* If you are hit, do NOT post details of it on social media. See “Insurance is not your friend” part 1 & 2 above. If you hire a lawyer, they will tell you the exact same thing.
**Part II: The Recovery**
While I was still in the ICU, I was told I would spend 4-8 weeks in a rehab hospital and then would have about 6 months of in home PT before starting outpatient PT. As for bike riding, initial estimate was 9 months to a year before I was back riding outside on the road and a year to 18 months before I could do gravel and mtb again. Of course, that was not going to work for me! As soon as I got out of the ICU, I threw everything I had into getting better. I did everything the Doctors and therapists told me to do. By doing this, I was already gaining strength again by the time I went to the rehab hospital.
That first week in the rehab hospital sucked. However, I did everything and pushed myself. I threw myself into getting better and by the middle of the second week, I had already accomplished all the things I needed to be released to go home (I never thought I would have to learn how to wipe my own butt again in my 40s, but I had to successfully do that to go home!)
Once I got home, the hustle and bustle of the hospitals were replaced with being confined to a bed and boredom. I figured at that point, if I couldn’t do anything fun, might as well eat everything I generally refrain from. Oh man did that pizza and ice cream taste good, but it was a huge detriment to my waist line (and I continued to eat like that for quite a while).
At 8 weeks post op, I was given permission to start riding a trainer at minimal resistance. I bought a kickr, had my wife pull the rain bike out of the garage, and started riding HERD rides on Zwift. Initially, I could only ride for 5-10 mins without hurting. By 12 weeks post op, I could ride for about an hour at around 1 W/KG.
At 12 weeks post op, I was given permission to start increasing resistance on the trainer, but to back off immediately if I felt pain. I tried. I really tried. I immediately did a RAMP Test and threw up from the pain. That led to a week in bed before I was able to get back on the trainer. This time, I kept with the HERD rides and slowly increased my time and resistance.
At five months post op, I was given permission to start riding on the road again (again, initial estimate was minimum of 9 months). No mountain biking, gravel riding, or hard efforts. I actually waited a few more weeks before I ventured out. Let me tell you, that first ride was fucking amazing. Although my balance was crap (I almost hit a parked car while clipping in), I was loving it. Took a bike path about 10 miles out of the city and tackled one of the steepest climbs in the area. Barely made it to the top while bouncing off of my max HR and promptly relieved my stomach of all its contents. I loved every second of it!
Over the next few months, I mixed it up with both Zwift and road riding, all the while continuing to chow down on pizza and ice cream (I regret nothing).
At 8 months post op, I was given permission to resume all activities. This beat the most aggressive estimate by 4 months. Right now, I am riding 100 – 150 miles/week between Zwift and the road. I haven’t ventured out on the mountain bike yet, but hope to do that soon. After the holidays are over, I am going to start back on my cycling nutrition plan and work on losing the 40 lbs I have gained since I was hit (did I mention eating pizza and ice cream is not good for your waist line?).
People ask me how I was able to return to riding on the road so quickly after such a horrific accident. Honestly, cycling has been a part of my life for so long and has helped me through so much, there was never any doubt in my mind about returning to the road. I was jumpy the first few rides, but my mental state is back to normal. That said, where I previously would have ridden a bike in the city to go to the grocery store, appointments, etc., I will now take the car. Currently, my city riding is to ride out of the city and into the less populated suburbs where the drivers are more cyclist friendly and then back to my house.
Another question I’m asked is what would I have done differently to avoid this accident. My answer is nothing. I did everything I could without being overly cautious. I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. When you do risky things such as ride in a very populous urban area with a known lack of traffic enforcement, you have to realize things will go wrong at some point.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I hope you gained something from this and stay safe out there!
\*Edit\* Corrected my misunderstanding of subrogation (thanks u/07030). Also corrected a couple of typos. Also, thanks everyone for the kind words. It has been hell, but I survived and happy to be back on the road!
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