exciting news for today: ambulance ride!

well, my good luck on motorcycles finally ended today. around 1pm i went to the hot bagel shop on shepherd for some bagels. they were closing up at 2pm so i hopped on the motorcycle and headed toward home. i was just a block or two from the bagel shop on shepherd and there wasn’t any traffic around me. a turquoise green 4-door sedan was in the petco parking lot to my right ahead of me, waiting to pull out. when i was less then a block or half block from them, they quickly pulled out. and then completely stopped, blocking both lanes. i guess traffic was coming from the other way and they wanted to make a left, and they hadn’t seen me. i slammed on the brakes and started to veer to the right a little. but i hit the driver’s side passenger (rear) door or front of the rear quarter panel with my front tire and then the rest of my bike came up and slammed my left leg between my bike and their door. i’m not sure how fast i was going at that point. i saw a piece of chrome falling to the ground (probably my left mirror) and then my bike started falling over. i hopped off it onto my feet and realized my left leg hurt. i think a girl in the car might have screamed or something, then i heard a guy’s voice say “…go. go! go! go!” and the car took off. i turned to watch them and memorize the license plate. i was saying it to myself when i realized my leg hurt really badly, so i hobbled a couple of steps and then sat down. i was worried it might be broken or something.
it was right in front of the petco, so numerous people were around and saw what happened. other people also had the license plate and info about the people in the car. a doctor happened to be right there. she stopped and got out and was feeling my leg asking me if i could feel her touching stuff, if it hurt, if i could wiggle my toes. some guys picked up my bike out of the road and pushed it into the petco parking lot. the doctor said she didn’t think anything was broken, but they’d probably put it in a cast. other people were coming up and asking me if i was okay, somebody brought me some water, some people put pet beds (i guess from the petco) under my head as a pillow.
evidently the people in the car switched drivers and then the guy came back by. i thought they were coming back to stop and the guy wanted to claim he was driving, but i heard some people say “that’s the car! that’s them!” and then they took off again i guess.
within a few minutes i think, the cops showed up. they took info from me about what happened, what i saw, etc. i also heard them talking to other people around me. at this point, numerous people started coming up to me and telling me they were sorry and hoped i would be okay, and shaking my hand. that seems kind of weird, but i bet at least 6 to 10 people did that. someone told me they’d tried to chase them but got caught in traffic and stopped by a cop. a younger blonde lady in a running shirt said if she’d have caught that girl she’d have kicked her 4ss for me. an older white lady that was dressed nicely came up and said she hoped i would be okay and she hoped i “could take those people for everything they’ve got, but they looked kind of trashy so they may not have anything.” that was pretty funny. two of the guys who work at the hot bagel shop stopped to see how i was doing. when i saw them i pointed at them and said “you just sold me bagels!” several people came up and told me my bike didn’t look too bad. i know i saw the front tire was flat, and a mirror and/or blinker or something broke off. one of the cops gave me a card to where it was getting towed.
a few minutes later the ambulance showed up. they pretty much asked the same questions, asked me if i wanted a ride to the hospital and if so which one, and when i said okay and i didn’t care they put me on a stretcher and put me in the back of the ambulance and said they were going to take me to saint luke’s. those stretchers aren’t comfortable, and neither is the ride. (the emts in the back with me called the driver “sue” several times, so i refrained from asking if his dad was a big johnny cash fan.) on the way i said “y’all don’t have cable tv in here?” they had put a neck brace on me even though i’d been moving my head and neck just fine, so all i could do was stare at the ceiling. while i was on my ride, i called sue and the hrc. the hrc lives right by the medical center so i thought maybe she could give me a ride home, and i’d had plans to hang out with the potts so i called sue to let her know i probably wouldn’t be making it over.
i got to the hospital and they triaged me. i suggested they should put something to watch or read on the ceiling. when they rolled me into the e.r. room, a nurse asked how i was doing and i said “just great!” she said “i’m not sure about that, you’re on a stretcher in the e.r.” and i said “but i’m just laying here, and people are rolling me around.” they gave me a tetanus shot, then did x-rays on my tibia, knee, and fibula (or whatever your leg bones are). they said everything looked okay, so they cleaned up the abrasions, bandaged and wrapped the leg, and gave me some crutches. i got up to walk (i hadn’t tried putting weight on the leg) and it hurt pretty bad. the doctor had given me prescriptions for motrin, vicoden (hydrocodone), and bactoban. a nurse asked me if i wanted some painkiller now, but i said i could just wait and get the prescription filled. they got a wheelchair and i sat down, then one of the nurses asked if i felt dizzy. i didn’t, but i was feeling clammy and flushed and sweaty…like right before you feel dizzy then pass out. so they made me sit and wait awhile, and the nurse went and got me some ice water and a painkiller pill. i had to go to the bathroom, so they wheeled me into the bathroom. by the time i was done (which was difficult) and washed my hands, my toes on my left foot were blue/purplish. but they got better. the hrc showed up, so the nurse wheeled me out and i was on my way home.
humorously, after letting sue and the hrc know that nothing appeared to be broken or anything, both of them said they felt a lot better because “i know how you tend to understate things” (they both said exactly the same thing) so they were worried just how bad it was since i’d been in an ambulance and bothered to call and tell them at all.
i got home and the hrc went and got my prescriptions and got me some gatorade and food and such. while she was gone i got up and used the bathroom. it’s about 10 feet from my bed, and i used the crutches, but by the time i got back to the bed my leg hurt pretty bad for several minutes. my knee and ankle have also both swollen up to about twice their normal size. but i’m assuming the pain will get worse before it gets better, since that tends to be how these sort of things work.
it seems like most medical workers asked me if i was wearing a helmet, and when i told them no they all said i needed to do that. i figure considering the possible scenarios, the fact that i appear to have gotten away with just battered up flesh and muscle is pretty good. hopefully they didn’t miss any problems with my knee or ankle. looking back on it, there really wasn’t much i could have done. i don’t really blame the driver too much, as mistakes happen. it’s pretty poor they took off though. maybe they didn’t have insurance, or she had a suspended license, or they had drugs in the car, or who knows what.
hopefully this will count as my motorcycle accident, and i won’t have to have another one in the future. anyway, i hope y’all are having a better weekend than me.