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Title: A Bicycling Trip to the Mississippi River

Subtitle: Part Two--The Accident

Date Occurred: Perhaps Autumn of 1982

Date Written: March 18, 2005

Written by: Joseph T. Arendt

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I woke to a gentle glowing yellowish-tan color. Despite difficulty getting to sleep after the incident with urinating on the tent, I had clearly slept for some hours because the sun shining brightly through the tent walls caused the colored effect. I got out of my tent and put on my shoes. Some of the others were already out. I went over and checked over the bicycles. None looked damaged, including my precious Trek. Terry also had a valuable bicycle, although I do not remember the brand. It also looked untouched.

All the tents were slightly damp with dew. The tent that had been urinated on by then seemed no more wet then the others.

I tried talk to the others about what had happened, but the others acted deaf. They would magically hear again when I talked of more mundane matters like the gloriously clear weather. Not a drop of rain had fell all night.

We ate breakfast, then the tents were put away. I felt weary not because of the riding the day before, but limited sleep. This day because of that tiredness, I put all my gear including the panniers into the follow up van. (See Figure 2) Given how tired I felt, I wanted to travel as lightly as I could that day.

Figure 2: Yellow Pannier Mounted on Rear Rack

[Photograph by Joseph Arendt]

As the miles passed with the van crawling along behind the slowest of the cyclists, the mood of the riders lightened. My own mood also improved. The riders egged each other on going up the hills, then raced when going down, just as on the previous day.

The roads were paved, but had only two lanes. These were country roads. It was a Sunday morning, so only rarely did a car or truck come along.

Three cyclists and I came to the base of a long, tall hill. One rider was Terry, but I did not remember the names of the other two. The remaining cyclists and the follow up van were out of sight behind us. There was only one main road to follow for many miles, so we were in no danger of losing them.

After much climbing and panting, the four of us crested the top at roughly the same time. Going down the hill turned into another race. I kept at it, but soon found due to the steepness of the hill that even in my highest gear, I could not spin the pedals fast enough. Although I have very low range gears for hill climbing in my touring bicycle, it is designed for touring and not racing. Its gears do not go as high as some other bicycles. The other three kept pumping and pulled ahead. Soon, though, all had quit pedaling. We all coasted rapidly down the hill. By tightening my crouch to reduce air resistance, I gained on the others. I do not know how fast we were going, but I know this was the fastest I have ever gone on my bicycle.

I then noticed all three cyclists turning toward the right side of the road. Terry was the outermost, and the other two were in his way. I wondered why they moved when a car appeared climbing the hill. It came around a curve that had hid it from my view.

To me, it appeared that the car itself was traveling the center of the road, which although not proper driving technique is common on quiet country roads. It looked like Terry would make it by, but he only cleared the front end. The car was at an angle because of the curve. Terry struck the car on the driver’s side front fender. The other two cyclists were farther to the right. They passed the car without any impact. Terry was catapulted off his expensive bicycle. He flew over the hood and hit the windshield. The windshield acted like a ramp, tossing Terry far into the air. Terry’s bicycle did not follow him up, but slid along the right side of the car, striking the driver’s door mirror.

That was all I saw before I had reached the car. I flew by on the right, a squeeze for just myself, much less for three cyclists at once. The car flashed by. Terry’s bicycle tumbled unpredictably. I tried to avoid it, but it struck me lightly on the ankle. There was no bruise, perhaps because that bicycle and I were traveling nearly the same speed.

I then saw Terry. Rather than flying through the air with limbs stuck out like a ragdoll, he had tucked into a tight somersault. For a moment, he looked like a graceful professional gymnast in a circus. There was no padded mat on the ground, but hard, black asphalt. He came down on it. The impact ripped the back of his shirt open in an instant. Then, he was rolling and rolling, still in his tightly tucked position.

Although I had my brakes on hard by now, Terry’s tumbling body slowed much more rapidly. I went zipping past him. It took an amazingly long distance down the hill before I was able to come to a stop. The other two cyclists had managed to stop at roughly the same location as I had.

I looked up the hill. Terry was no longer in his tuck, but lay flat on his stomach on the road. His bicycle was mangled and over on the side of the road. Terry lay still as though unconscious or dead.

For a moment, given the events of the night before, I had a fearful thought this might be deliberate. The car seemed a similarly sized land yacht as the night before. However, with long skid marks, the car had come to a stop too. A driver was getting out. That this was not hit-and-run convinced me this was truly an accident.

I jumped off my Trek, letting it fall hard. I ran toward Terry. One of the other two cyclists was abreast of me, also running hard. The other cyclist seemed rooted to the spot, unsure what to do. Terry moved his arm. Seeing the movement and at the same time, the other runner and I both screamed at Terry to not get up and to stop moving. I feared a back or neck injury, given how the back of his shirt had ripped open and the visible skin of his back was bloody. I felt we needed professionals with a backboard!

Before the other runner and I got to him, Terry stood up. Boy Scout first aid training never covered the victim doing that! Terry then staggered like he might fall, but the other guy and I had reached him by then. One of us at each side, we eased Terry down to a seated position.

I carried a few bandaids and antiseptic lotion in one of my panniers, but the panniers were in the van because of my tiredness earlier in the morning. This called for far, far more than that anyway! I felt my bandaids would not cover even a tenth of his cuts and scrapes!

As the other guy and I questioned the seated Terry about what hurt, the driver of the car gingerly approached, giving apologies that at that moment I had no interest in hearing. The other cyclists began showing up, then the follow-up van. When Terry’s girlfriend leaped out and saw him, she let out a scream. Terry himself assured her he was not badly hurt, but I was not so sure he was correct. Accident victims can miscalculate their own injuries. His statement calmed her down, though.

Terry’s girlfriend then announced the closest city was Platteville itself, as we were getting close. She had been following along on a map in the van and with the odometer. Rather than waiting for an ambulance to drive out, Terry wanted to go in the van. This was hastily done, with somebody tossing the wreck of his bicycle in the back of the van.

Other than Terry and his girlfriend, I do not know who else went in the van. The van soon raced out of sight.

At the accident site, that left the rest of us cyclists, the car driver, and I think the car had one passenger too. We stood for a couple minutes, and then the other cyclists decided to ride straight to the Platteville hospital to find out Terry’s condition. I pedaled along with them.

By the time we got to the hospital on bicycles, Terry had already been through X-rays, including developing. Miraculously, not one broken bone had been found. His girlfriend told us that there were signs that one of Terry’s arms had dislocated, but it had popped back into place on its own already. He had many abrasions and bruises. I believe he was not even going to have to stay the night in the hospital.

If I had to give an example of something that I personally witnessed that seemed a miracle, Terry’s condition after that kind of accident seems to qualify.

Somebody then got my gear out of the van. I tied it to my bicycle. After then sitting around for another half-hour or so with nothing seeming to happen, I left. So did the other cyclists.

Several days later, I saw Terry and his girlfriend walking across campus. Terry walked slowly and gingerly. The way he moved reminded me of a fellow student in my wing of the dorms. A group had gone to lift weights. Although this particular student had hardly weight lifted before, he joined in. I heard he had been showing off and competing with the others. The next day, he had trouble getting out of bed. When I saw him, he moved slowly and with evident pain. Terry moved the same way that day.

Terry told of his injuries, which still matched what I had been told at the hospital. He then mentioned that his fancy bicycle was effectively destroyed. About the bicycle, I was not surprised, although the lack of serious injuries astonished me. He claimed the accident was the fault of the driver of the car, so he should get reimbursed for the bicycle.

I told of remembering the car being more in center of the road instead of entirely in its own lane, but I did not know if that would be enough for his claim. I mentioned we had been going very fast down the hill, after all, so there might be some blame on both sides.

Terry’s girlfriend then told me something that made me feel like a complete idiot! After the rest of us had left for the hospital, the driver of the car went to the nearest farmhouse. From there, he had phoned the police. Surely the police should have been notified in an accident of this magnitude, but it had not once occurred to me! All I had thought about was Terry getting medical attention.

Terry’s girlfriend explained that the police had talked to the driver and his passenger, but not to Terry or anybody in our group. The result was a police report that she claimed was highly slanted toward the accident being solely the fault of Terry. She feared that the police had not talked to any of us would make it far harder for Terry to get his bicycle paid for.

Compared to what I felt Terry’s injuries could have been, worrying about the cost of a bicycle, even an expensive bicycle, seemed like a joke in comparison.

I saw Terry again a week or so later. Bruises and abrasions still showed, but he moved normally again. His girlfriend did not happen to be with him. Terry told me that he and some friends had driven out to the accident site to take photographs. He said that the skid marks showed the car had not been in his own lane, but in the center of the road as I had remembered. Terry also said that the road had no centerline painted on it. Centerlines were not always put on those country roads. While that could hurt his case, he claimed there was no question from the skid marks that the car had been so far out of its own lane that it was clear even without a painted centerline.

Terry also claimed that a sign warning of a curve ahead was lying flat on the ground. Its post was sheered off. He said that it looked like a passing car had knocked the sign over at some point. He felt the sign had been down before his accident. I do not recall seeing any sign before the curve, so that might be true. I never saw a sign flat on the ground either, though.

Same days or weeks later, I was in my dorm room studying when the phone rang. I did not know the person on the other end of the line. From how he described himself, I got the strong impression that Terry was so serious about getting his bicycle paid for that he had hired this man as his lawyer. The man asked if I would answer a few questions about the accident.

I was answering some questions when the questions became very slanted and suggestive. Suspicious, I asked if he was really a lawyer. He said that he was. I then asked point-blank whom he worked for. He told me that it was the driver of the car! This completely contradicted my earlier impression.

I wish I had a recording of the entire conversation to find out if he had used carefully worded misdirection or an outright lie to get me to previously think he was Terry’s lawyer. I remain convinced it had been a deliberate deception. It seemed to me that the lawyer must have learned this tactic to get information that would not otherwise have been revealed.

I refused to talk to him after that.

Everything I had told him had matched my recollection of the accident. It just annoyed me so much that I had been fooled. I have mistrusted all lawyers since that conversation.

The hiring of a lawyer by either side puzzled me. The bicycle was nice, but I doubt it cost over five hundred dollars. That is, the dollar as valued in 1982. I suspect it would be a bicycle worth somewhere between five hundred and a thousand dollars in today’s dollars.

The car seemed from what I had seen of it to have a long shallow dent in the fender and a ruined side mirror. While damage can be greater than it might initially appear, such as if the bad mirror means the entire door has to be replaced, the car simply did not seem too seriously damaged. It certainly did not need a frame straightening or anything drastic like that. I had seen the windshield of the car after the van had just left. There had been some blood on it, but I recall no damage to the glass.

If Terry had claimed serious injuries, that might lead to a case involving truly large sums of money where lawyers would be well justified. The two times I had seen Terry after the accident, he claimed no serious injuries at all.

I could not figure out what was going on.

I expected to be contacted again by one side, the other, or both. I never was. I do not know how the case came out or if it ever made it into court.

Although I liked Terry, the events of that weekend trip and the aftermath never added up to me. As a result, I decided to have no more interactions with the Platteville Bicycling Club.

I hoped to run into Terry or his girlfriend again on campus and get a better explanation, but never remember doing so.

I changed from using bicycling for exercising to jogging, but that was because my courses had gotten more demanding. I found jogging took less time. I did not jog all the way out to the M like Dr. Rosenthal regularly did. Instead, I jogged around a route perhaps a mile and a half long labeled the Parcourse. It ran behind the cafeteria, behind the cemetery, through some woods, along a stream, and by a parking lot.

THE END