Sunday, 14 September 2003 | Accident, part 1

I was lying on a stretcher, strapped in by three orange seat belts, clutching a piece of wood sealed in orange plastic. They made me sign something—left-handed, as they held it on a clipboard in the air—that said I agreed not to be stabilized in some sort of neck brace. My signature was indecipherable; sharp mountain-like scratches made with a ball-point pen. Riding up FDR Drive, I made necessary phone calls, asked the rescue workers questions, repeatedly squeezed my eyes shut so they'd stop tearing, and watched the traffic behind us through a window decorated with a frosty white medical cross. It was my first ride in an ambulance.

The rescue workers wore uniforms similar to the navy ensembles that police wear. The workers weren't especially gentle or sympathetic, and they seemed somewhat uninterested in what they were doing. They told me my injury was more minor than I'd suspected, and that no one would mess with my bike, which was locked up outside of the door to the emergency room. They would be wrong about both.

I was rolled into the intake room, next to a mustached man on a stretcher who kept spitting into a yellow bucket that was resting on his legs. We checked each other out and assessed our respective injuries. A paramedic looked at me and muttered, "Ooh, face plant...face plant. She needs a suspension bike." A sweet-faced black woman, wearing what appeared to be a wig, took down my information and asked me to describe the level of pain I was experiencing, on a scale of one to ten. "Um...five, I guess...I don't know what it feels like to be shot or anything." She told me she'd put me down as a seven, and then interrupted herself to yell at a strange man behind me to stop touching the patients, or she'd have to call security.

Once in my curtained "room," I was visited by a series of people who would ask me the same series of questions again and again. (Did you pass out? Do you have any neck or back pain? Can you feel your fingers when I touch them? Can you form these shapes with your hand? Can you move your arm this way? That way? What happened exactly?) And I would recite the series of events again, including varying degrees of details:

I was riding my bike on the Williamsburg Bridge, hoping to take a few pictures of the blue lasers that were temporarily standing where the World Trade Center towers used to be. Coasting down the Manhattan side of the bridge, I was careful to slow down for each of the yellow metal speed bumps that punctuate the footpath. At one of the speed bumps I breaked too hard, leaving my bike behind me as I flew over the handlebars and landed, somehow, on my elbow and face. I sat up—minus my breath and minus the noise that the cars below were supposed to be making—and reached for my shrieking right arm, my bloody face, and my kicked-in front teeth, checking to make sure all were intact. My inventory didn't tell me much.

It didn't take long before I was helped by another biker, who reassured me that I would be okay, offered to make a splint out of his white sweatshirt, and propped up my bike (which was now curiously several feet in front of me). I don't know how long he was on the phone with 911, but I remember him giving the specifics of our location several times, and running down the bridge to meet the ambulance when it arrived. He chided another biker who'd stopped to help when that guy had suggested I might need stitches in my face. Both told me they'd lost parts of their teeth as a result of those speed bumps. Turns out, I had, too.

There was a roach on the curtained "wall" next to my stretcher. "There's a roach," I quietly said, and two nurses frantically jumped around, trying to kill it. I had numerous doctors and nurses looking after me; I wasn't sure if it was because they considered my injury to be particularly urgent, because it was an obviously quiet night at the hospital, or because I was one of the rare patients at that hospital who had insurance (which was really the case, apparently). My favorite doctor let me call him Chris; he looked something like Andrew MacCarthy and was responsible for breaking bad news to me. He showed me my x-ray, carefully explaining what part of my elbow was broken, and that I would need surgery and a permanent pin through my arm. I told him the x-ray could easily be fixed in Photoshop, but I'm not sure he understood.

My very patient friend Michael showed up at the hospital shortly after I'd arrived. He followed my stretcher as it was wheeled to the x-ray room three times by a gray-haired black man named Malcolm; he took notes and pictures, and later took abuse from an inquisitive cab driver, who'd wrongly assumed that he was responsible for my injuries; and he distracted me and made me momentarily forget about my stupid pain. (Since Thursday night, several of my friends have generously offered to be my right arm, to cook and run errands, and to keep me from being bored.)

Anyway, I'm fine. I'm frustrated that I'm incapable of doing almost everything, frustrated that someone stole the seats and head/taillights off my bike, frustrated that I currently have to eat mush because my front teeth are loose, frustrated that my painkillers steal my appetite, and frustrated that I'm typing this with one hand. I'm nervous that I may need a root canal (or three) as my dentist suggested might be necessary, nervous about what will be my first experience with surgery on Friday, nervous that, even with insurance, I am going to be out lots of money, and nervous that I'll be useless at work for the next few weeks. But I am fine.

A few pictures:
speed bumps and "towers"
hospital face
elbow
post-hospital face