An Ironman athlete had a major collision with a car Sunday while on his bike at the Louisville Ironman Triathlon. A car pulled in front of him at 37mph on Hwy 42 approx 105m into the race. That section of road is a downhill just prior to River Road. He was airlifted to Louisville University Hospital with 2 broken clavicles, a broken scapula, 4 vertebrae with hangman breaks, broken ribs, eye socket swollen shut, etc. Needless to say he is in pretty bad shape. He said he cannot move, but didn’t say whether this was due to the hospital staff immobilizing him, or if he is physically unable to move. He will undergo operations in the next few days and will possibly get plates put in his shoulders. He will have to wear a halo for the next 3-4 months to keep his head immobile. I asked him if any of the IRONMAN staff had contacted him about the accident and he mentioned NO!!! Shit, they packed up and left town. I hope all goes well and he has a speedy recovery!
Anyways, I’m wondering what the $10 one day license fee covers that they charge you?
What is the staff of the race going to do? Who was at fault? If this was a vehicle and the vehicle was at fault - race insurance wont need to cover the guy. In addition, if the race staff tried to contact him they would hit the brick wall of HIPAA.
Oh man. Do you know this poor athlete? Sounds like you have a lot of details.
Yes, HIPAA won’t allow much contact/details, but I sure hope that he is OK. We all worry about our nutrition, flat tire, sore legs, etc. but never think about the really bad stuff than can happen. Let’s hope he?/she ultimately heals back as strong as ever.
HIPPA does not stop the RD from utilizing the information they have in their entry form such as phone number or emergency contact just to check up on the guy.
Also, all USAT sanctioned events require all accidents and injury be reported and the forms filled out.
AND in case the bozo who hit him does not have insurance or does not have enough coverage to take care of the medicals, USAT insurance kicks in.
i just think it is common courtesy for the RD to follow up with athletes that have been injured on their watch. I make every attempt to at our races. not to mention the requirements for USAT.
anyway, hope the guy is ok. really a terrible thing to happen.
It appears that the driver approached an intersection that still had working lights. Why in the world would they do that?? The “Forum” associated with the article (interesting read) has mixed info but it appears that the police may not have been at this intersection when the accident occured. The woman supposedly let other racers go (even though she had the green light to proceed) and may not have seen the last one that hit her.
So who is at fault? Is it the racer’s ultimate responsibility to protect themselves when a bike course is not closed? I know the run course was closed but the bike course was open to traffic in sections. It may appear that the police dropped the ball in this instance…
Hopefully the athlete makes a full recovery - what a tragedy.
that sucks - look into a road id. I have an ankle one that doubles as a timing chip strap. Has health insurance and cell numbers on it. Always train with it and used it at LP. Don’t know about you but even the people I train with all the time do not know my health insurance info or my wife’s cell number. Would have thought that the IM people would have made that type of info available to the area hospitals.
I pray for the person who was injured and I’m sad to hear about that. I hope it never happens again and I bet the local authorities and drivers will learn from this experience and hopefully things will become safer in the future.
I loved the course, the organization, the crowds and volunteers. I would recommend this race to others. Breaking Ironman the tradition of a mass swim start at that venue in favor of a time trial start averted what I think would have been a disaster of epic proportions. I was glad to see Ironman put common sense and safety above tradition.
Regarding the bike course. It was fun, beautiful and challenging. However, as a first year race… there’s a caveat… I knew there would be a few open roads and even still there was more traffic than I expected for a race on Hwy 42 coming back into Louisville and going through Lagrange too, but the problem there is my expectations for a race. In reality there was far less traffic than any of us see while training. I don’t think the community or the cops knew what to expect (as exemplified by them telling cars they could come through not realizing how fast bikes were moving, etc.) . Lets be realistic here… the cops there are used to seeing some kid on a hundred dollar Huffy coming down the street at 9 mph, not a racer on a $5000 Cervelo at 39 mph.
There were 2-3 instances where I had to slow down for safety sake and one in particular was caused by some knucklehead driver in a big white Lincoln Towncar bull$hitting on his cell phone coming down 42 before River Road with two cyclists just in front of him and me and another cyclish riding right behind him. Since he gave us no room to pass on the side (literally there were times when 18-24 inches separated his tires from the grass alongside the road). The cyclist behind me pulled up right behind him so he could be seen from the driver’s rearview mirror and started waving, pointing and shouting “get off the phone” “pay attention” and “move over”. The driver must have been really interested in his cell phone conversation cause he kept on with the same old stuff. Minutes later, we came by a cop, the cyclist behind me told the cop what was happening… the cop said he’d radio ahead. We saw another cop about a quarter mile up the road and I never had any more problems with that driver.
The race was awesome and unique, but caution on the bike, like in training, was absolutely necessary.
I think that was just a bad section of the course in general - I was almost run off the road there as well, and I know both myself and the rider ~100yds ahead of me were forced to ride on the rumble strips as cars had taken up the lane. I hope the guy who went down recovers quickly.
The triathlete who had a car pull out in front of him at Louisville is a friend of mine. I didn’t see him on the run course but he’d been having problems with his IT so I thought he might of pulled out of the race. My race wasn’t going too well either so when I crossed the finish line all I wanted to do was get a shower and some solid food. We hung out at the finish line for a bit and then headed back to the hotel for some sleep. I got a call from Tom on Monday morning but missed the call. I decided to wait until my wife and I were on the road to check the message. We were probably an hour outside of Louisville when I remembered Tom’s call. I couldn’t believe what I heard. I imediately called him back to see if he wanted us to come back and give him a hand. He made is sound like it wasn’t too bad, broken rib and shoulder. His parents had flown in from CA to watch him race and he said they would be there to take care of him.
I’m going to give him a call in a few minutes and I’ll pass along everyone’s thoughts. If he gives me the OK I’ll post his contact info to anyone interested.
i was scared just doing a training ride on highway 42 on thursday. there are not bike lanes or wide shoulders. dangerous place to ride. i was even kind of suprised that the roads were not closed for the race. i almost say a couple of really bad car/bike accidents waiting to happen. that was the only negative on the entire race in my opinion.
Assuming this was the same incident, the RD mentioned this to me in a conversation with him on Monday pm. He knew was aware that the athlete had been discharged from the hospital the same evening. Now either this is a separate incident (I sure hope there were not two of that severity) or the RD was given some bad info. Either way I know that he was aware and concerned about the incident but seemed to have been under the impression that the situation (and very much relieved) was not as severe as it perhaps is/was.
As for the overall comments on the road security. Well I read a lot of the advice and warnings on this board prior to the event. There were a huge amount of intersections and opportunities for problems but there was generally very competent police presence at all the critical locations. The roads were not closed but in general the drivers were very reluctant to pass the racers unless there was very clear road ahead. There are times of course that this causes a problem for faster riders comming up behind the cars. I had to pass cars several times and did so on both sides making sure that the driver was aware of my presence. I also took the foot of the gas at most intersections and sat up with hands covering the brakes just to give myself the best possible position to react in case of danger. However there is always a risk an unfortunately accidents do happen.
I wish this racer a speedy recovery and all the best. I think that a call/contact/follow up from the RD would be appropriate. I sure hope that happens.
The article mentioned a second non auto related accident.
I think I saw it right at the start of the bike. I was going along to the right the road was merging left and there was a sewer
manhole cover with about half inch indent I zipped around the left pointed it out to any behind me then looking in my mirror
saw the bike behind me try to avoid it but he turned his front too much and went down hard I didn’t see him get up right away he was about 30 feet behind me I think right there in first half mile I think so I wonder if that was the other accident.
(no comments on the mirror please I train with it and I’m so used to it I feel the need to wear it in races to feel safe watching for cars and drafting packs which I’m glad to say I saw none at louisville)
Diesel,
You could have some spasms in your coronary arteries (Angina)and the Nitro just opens them up and lets the blood flow through better. what was your BP running?
Was that me? I was bib#1108. I knew we were going to run into something nasty as I came to an intersection with three cops trying to stop three of us because the ambulance was coming to get the cyclist. We managed to get thru the intersection safely and then we had to drive on the shoulder and then veer to the center of the intersection. I saw that guy on the ground precisley on the moment that the ambulance got there. It looked really bad. 10 minutes later I saw the chopper fly over me as I was coming to my near accident 3 miles from transtiiton.
All and all the course and police did a fantastic job EXCEPT for the last 10 miles coming back to Loo. There were a lot of intersection with no officers at all. A minvan pulled right in front of me and I locked both wheels for 20 feet and came about 6" from hitting his bumper. He was completely clueless.
No biggie because I’m stoked. I went on to post a 10:18 and I’m going to Kona baby!!!
Man you must not have grown up in the 70’s. If you had, you would remember watching episodes of Emergency! and Adam-12 - and you would know what “BP” stands for. Those shows beat the stupidity of ER and Scrubs any day!!
Just want to express my admiration to you all. I was a volunteer for 3 days at the transition area that had the op. to experience a little bit of what an IRONMAN is about !!!
CONGRATULATIONS EVERYONE.
Marcela