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#1559
Christina
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On July 3rd, I was returning home from a concert and riding my scooter. When I turn left onto this street, there’s a big confluence of streetcar tracks so I swing way over to the right side to avoid them. That was no problem, but the 3’x3′ piece of styrofoam in the road was. Instead of going straight at it, I tried to avoid it by swerving around it on the right, but caught the triangular edge (it was about 4 inches tall). I started fishtailing quite severely before losing control of my bike, sliding out on my left side while my bike skidded away in front of me, flashing sparks before it came to a stop.

Luckily, I had four guardian angels appear – a family of three and a passing cyclist. They were wonderful and got me ice and water, and called an ambulance. I had to spend the night in the hospital and went over two excruciating hours without anything for the pain.

After some confusion at the hospital over the next few days, I finally ascertained exactly what was wrong with me: tibial plateau fracture, as well as a fibia fracture. The possibility of a radial head fracture was no more, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief that using crutches the last few days hadn’t done even more damage.

For now, I don’t have to go through surgery, but I do have to go back to the fracture clinic every week to make sure my fractures haven’t slipped. They’ve got me on crutches right now, but it’s exhausting going on them even a half block, so I’m looking into renting a wheelchair. Luckily, I work from home, so I’ve barely missed a beat, other than being hopped up on painkillers and shutting down the laptop out of necessity.

I’m 28 and know I’m incredibly lucky every time I look back on the accident. I know it could have been avoidable if I was going slower (I was traveling 50 or 60kmh – about 35mph) or if it was daylight, but that doesn’t change anything. But the helmet I was wearing was the really bulky kind of motorcycle helmet with full face protection and a ton of padding inside, and I didn’t sustain any head or spinal injuries. I got barely any road rash, even though I was only wearing walking shorts and a hoodie. My left shoe was ripped open a bit (it’s a Skechers slip-on shoe, so the elastic over top of the tongue was torn off), but that just makes it perfect to get on and off my left foot. And I don’t have to go for surgery.

If I was a religious person, I’d say someone was looking out for me.