Jeff’s Blog

This is how my phone looked after I had to call 911 this evening. I was driving my friend Brynna back to where she’s staying in Maple Leaf while visiting Seattle. While traveling north on 10th Ave E at 520 to get onto the freeway, I saw a guy on a bike spill badly on the road. Just before we saw him fall, I remarked to Brynna about how he’d been going. He’d been in front of me for just about the entire hill and I was going about the speed limit (maybe a little bit over–probably about 30mph).

I pulled my car over, put on my flashers and we ran to see if the guy was ok. He was laying on the ground, slightly rolling around and groaning. He seemed totally unresponsive to us talking to him even though I was asking him if he was ok. I called 911 as more people (at least 3 other bicyclists and a car) pulled over to help. I explained what was happening to 911 and they said paramedics would be there in a couple minutes. Around this time, the guy was sitting up, still mumbling and confused. One of the other onlookers had asked him what his name was. He was trying to talk, but it was just all coming out mumbled. 911 then called back to ask “if the car was still there”. Apparently, they thought he’d been hit by a car. I informed them that he hadn’t been hit by a car, but that it looked like he had tumbled after losing control, probably from hitting a bump in the road. The operator then asked me if I was sure, to which I said yes. There were no cars although I do vaguely recall now that he’d just passed a parked car when he tumbled.

After what seemed like a while but couldn’t have been more than a minute or two, a fire engine rounded the corner with its lights on. It occurred to me on the way home that there’s a fire station on the corner of Roanoke and 10th, about a couple hundred yards from where this was all happening. After I saw the lights but before they actually arrived on the scene, the guy stood up and started saying completely coherently that he was fine, not to call anybody, that he was sorry for having bothered everybody, etc. Everybody of course told him that he had been very disoriented and unable to speak only a couple minutes ago. The fire department gave him a quick once over and let him go after he assured them that he was fine. He said his shoulder hurt a little and his ear was bleeding a little, but otherwise was fine.

His bike was definitely damaged. It had a flat front tire and one of the drop handlebars was bent near the shifter. I’m not sure if the tire became flat after he crashed or was the source of the crash.

He left to walk home, the other onlookers returned to their bikes or cars and the fire department got ready to leave. I resumed driving Brynna home. We both discussed how strange it was that he’d gone from being fairly messed up to completely coherent in a matter of seconds. Is that a typical response to this sort of injury? I wonder if he’d had a seizure while riding which caused him to lose control. The severely slurred speech would seem to indicate something like that, but I’m obviously not a medical professional. If he was an epileptic who’d known he’d had a seizure, I suppose he might react in such a way.

Anyhow, it seemed like everybody was ok although it was pretty scary that at first when the guy seemed really messed up.