A close friend of mine raced Boulder 70.3 this weekend, had a terrible bike crash, and I'm posting to (1) ask for your help, and (2) give this community some food for thought.
On the second lap of the bike leg, after making the turn onto St. Vrain, my friend (M30-34) was involved in a nasty crash. As he was passing a woman (she was in the correct position on the right hand side of the lane), he was sideswiped by a cyclist overtaking him. He never saw the cyclist coming from behind, their bars bumped and briefly tangled, and my friend crashed. They were going down a fairly long and somewhat steep hill at the time, and he was going approximately 45 mph when he crashed. The other cyclist did not crash, nor for that matter did he stop, acknowledge the accident, call for help, or do anything other than ride off into the distance.
My friend went over the bars, and though he is not 100% clear on how the impact unfolded, here is a rough idea from the injuries: he impacted his head and broke his helmet in half, though he was not concussed; his left shoulder was dislocated badly and he had road rash from his hand to his toes on his left side; his left elbow was badly damaged - he essentially abraded the knob off the inside of his elbow and required surgery to remove bone fragments and asphalt, and to reattach ligaments; and of course he was covered more or less head to toe in road rash. While he is lucky to be alive, he is facing a lot of rehab, and may have permanent nerve damage in the shoulder and elbow.
On the first request above, I am interested in knowing whether anyone on this forum saw the crash and got the number of the racer who caused the crash. I know it's a long shot, and maybe people wouldn't fess up anyway, but my friend guesses that at least 3 people had a firsthand view of the bump and crash. The racer who caused this crash needs to be contacted, at the very least to explain from his perspective what happened, but possibly to be disqualified. Even if he was not at fault in the crash, and even if he should not be disqualified, riding off knowing that you were a participant in someone crashing going 45 mph is inexcusable. My friend should probably be dead right now, and this a$$hole rode off without so much as acknowledging what had happened.
Secondly, after the crash, my friend was passed by approximately 30 racers who didn't so much as ask whether he was alright. If I may paint the picture, my friend was standing on the side of the road, at the end of long bloody streak, covered in road rash, wearing tatters, bleeding profusely while holding a broken bike (clearly in severe shock, he quickly jumped to his feet and got the bike out of the road to avoid someone else hitting it and crashing), and he was wearing a helmet that was split in half. Roughly 30 people passed him without even making eye contact, without even shouting "are you all right?!" At that point my friend started to despair about how he would get the help he needed, when finally a decent human being stopped to ask if he was okay. That racer (a guy, no one got his name, thank you whoever you are) turned around, rode up the hill, got to the nearest race official and an ambulence was on the way.
The race director and staff were fantastic, the medical professionals were top notch, and there isn't really a better place that I know of to crash a bike than Boulder, Colorado - Boulder Community Hospital is top notch in dealing with bike crashes, for obvious reasons. So let me be clear that this post has nothing to do with race personnel, staff, medical professionals, etc. They were wonderful.
But the person who took part in this crash, and all the people who passed by without helping, need to seriously reexamine their priorities. My friend is a mid-pack triathlete, which means that those athletes passing him were almost certainly not in contention for anything other than possibly a PR. Even if they were racing for the win (probably impossible given the circumstances), I wonder what that's worth in comparison. Instead of giving up perhaps 10 minutes of their race to help out another athlete, a member of this very "community," every one of those people raced on without so much as an acknowledgement. I've been around this forum long enough to know that there are 50 questions, excuses, and rationalizations, but when it really gets right down to the nub of it, is there any reason one of those 30 people couldn't have stopped to help? Is there any excuse for not helping out a fellow athlete in such a dire time of need?
Help if you saw what happened. For the rest, think when you're racing. Don't check your compassion at the door just because you're in a race. Frankly, no one gives a sh!t about your PR, and they would be appalled if they knew it came as a result of you passing a severely injured athlete on the side of the road without helping.
On the second lap of the bike leg, after making the turn onto St. Vrain, my friend (M30-34) was involved in a nasty crash. As he was passing a woman (she was in the correct position on the right hand side of the lane), he was sideswiped by a cyclist overtaking him. He never saw the cyclist coming from behind, their bars bumped and briefly tangled, and my friend crashed. They were going down a fairly long and somewhat steep hill at the time, and he was going approximately 45 mph when he crashed. The other cyclist did not crash, nor for that matter did he stop, acknowledge the accident, call for help, or do anything other than ride off into the distance.
My friend went over the bars, and though he is not 100% clear on how the impact unfolded, here is a rough idea from the injuries: he impacted his head and broke his helmet in half, though he was not concussed; his left shoulder was dislocated badly and he had road rash from his hand to his toes on his left side; his left elbow was badly damaged - he essentially abraded the knob off the inside of his elbow and required surgery to remove bone fragments and asphalt, and to reattach ligaments; and of course he was covered more or less head to toe in road rash. While he is lucky to be alive, he is facing a lot of rehab, and may have permanent nerve damage in the shoulder and elbow.
On the first request above, I am interested in knowing whether anyone on this forum saw the crash and got the number of the racer who caused the crash. I know it's a long shot, and maybe people wouldn't fess up anyway, but my friend guesses that at least 3 people had a firsthand view of the bump and crash. The racer who caused this crash needs to be contacted, at the very least to explain from his perspective what happened, but possibly to be disqualified. Even if he was not at fault in the crash, and even if he should not be disqualified, riding off knowing that you were a participant in someone crashing going 45 mph is inexcusable. My friend should probably be dead right now, and this a$$hole rode off without so much as acknowledging what had happened.
Secondly, after the crash, my friend was passed by approximately 30 racers who didn't so much as ask whether he was alright. If I may paint the picture, my friend was standing on the side of the road, at the end of long bloody streak, covered in road rash, wearing tatters, bleeding profusely while holding a broken bike (clearly in severe shock, he quickly jumped to his feet and got the bike out of the road to avoid someone else hitting it and crashing), and he was wearing a helmet that was split in half. Roughly 30 people passed him without even making eye contact, without even shouting "are you all right?!" At that point my friend started to despair about how he would get the help he needed, when finally a decent human being stopped to ask if he was okay. That racer (a guy, no one got his name, thank you whoever you are) turned around, rode up the hill, got to the nearest race official and an ambulence was on the way.
The race director and staff were fantastic, the medical professionals were top notch, and there isn't really a better place that I know of to crash a bike than Boulder, Colorado - Boulder Community Hospital is top notch in dealing with bike crashes, for obvious reasons. So let me be clear that this post has nothing to do with race personnel, staff, medical professionals, etc. They were wonderful.
But the person who took part in this crash, and all the people who passed by without helping, need to seriously reexamine their priorities. My friend is a mid-pack triathlete, which means that those athletes passing him were almost certainly not in contention for anything other than possibly a PR. Even if they were racing for the win (probably impossible given the circumstances), I wonder what that's worth in comparison. Instead of giving up perhaps 10 minutes of their race to help out another athlete, a member of this very "community," every one of those people raced on without so much as an acknowledgement. I've been around this forum long enough to know that there are 50 questions, excuses, and rationalizations, but when it really gets right down to the nub of it, is there any reason one of those 30 people couldn't have stopped to help? Is there any excuse for not helping out a fellow athlete in such a dire time of need?
Help if you saw what happened. For the rest, think when you're racing. Don't check your compassion at the door just because you're in a race. Frankly, no one gives a sh!t about your PR, and they would be appalled if they knew it came as a result of you passing a severely injured athlete on the side of the road without helping.