If you're going to have a horrible accident

have it as close to the ER as possible!

There was a serious bike accident at work today, and my coworker proved himself a bit of a hero (IMHO anyway).

Coworker was walking down to a meeting and came upon this scene:

There was a car coming up the hill, and a biker going down the hill. It's a steep hill so it's easy to pick up a LOT of speed... I don't know how fast he was going, but I've driven behind bikers going at least 25mph before. Anyway, he's going down hill and the car starts to turn left, but apparently the driver sees the biker and decides not to turn - witnesses say she just barely had her bumper in the other lane. But in the seconds of hesitation the biker starts to swerve to go around her, then decides to go straight when she stops - but over corrects & loses control. There's a lot of screaming and then SMACK he hits the road.

Coworker runs up to the guy and when he gets there the biker is non-responsive and bleeding... his face all messed up. Fortunately coworker has experience as an EMT and is currently taking pre-reqs to get into Nursing school. So he takes the guy's pulse, does first responder stuff, then runs the half block to the ER to get help. There were other folks (no doubt doctors & nurses) who looked after him. The ER team come out and did their thing - put a brace on his neck, put him on a board and onto a gurney to roll him down to the ER.

The whole time the poor woman in the car is seriously upset - people who half-saw what had happened were saying "Oh there's the car that hit him" which of course is not what happened. Fortunately there were actual witnesses who saw what happened, and they talked to the Police. Actually another two coworkers saw the aftermath, so it was quite the topic of conversation today.

Unfortunately due to privacy concerns we weren't able to find out anything else about his condition after he went into the ER. Hopefully there will be an update on the news. But man! I can only hope that if I'm ever in a serious accident it happens within 50 yards of an ER with an EMT and a few doctors wandering around!