7. Damage to my bike. The only real damage to my bike was a bent brake lever, probably the result of my pulling on it as hard as I could. I have not replaced the brake lever, as it still works fine. Surprisingly, the front wheel did not get bent.
6. Personal injuries. I got a couple of stitches on my face and the bruises I mentioned before. Nothing too bad.
5. Trip to the ER. There is nothing enjoyable about going to the ER. It takes forever (though I should mention that in this case I was only there for a paltry two hours for the five minutes it took to get stitches). Truthfully, I'm not sure how necessary this was. The cut had already stopped bleeding by the time they got around to stitching it, but I suppose the scar won't be as bad this way.
4. Paperwork surrounding trip to the ER. Raise your hand if you like filling out health insurance related paperwork. I still fear that some bill for some obscene amount of money is going to show up in the mail because no one wants to pay the bill.
3. Embarrassment. Of course this crash took place in one of the busiest pedestrian intersections around. There were plenty of people around to ask me if I needed help and tell me that it was there professional opinion that I should go to the ER and ask all the kinds of questions they might teach you in med school (Did I mention that this intersection is near the UCLA medical school?). This all might have been okay, but the guy I ran into called the paramedics who showed up, and because my head came in contact with the minivan, snapped on a neck brace, strapped me to a board and hauled me off in an ambulance, when all I really wanted to do was ride my bike home. And because I was strapped to a board and hauled off in an ambulance,
2. I lost, and therefore had to replace, my helmet, my brand new sunglasses, and my gloves. After the collision, I walked to the corner and took off my helmet and put my sunglasses and gloves inside it. Then the paramedics came and took me away. A police officer, brought my bike and bag to the hospital, but apparently the helmet and the things in it got left behind.
1. Panic at home. The worst part of it all though was the fear and panic that the whole incident caused to Dimples. I usually call home right before I leave work, so she knew I was on my way home, but as the hours started to tick away, she started to fear the worst. I did not have a cell phone with me and I spent the first hour or so at the hospital strapped to a board in some hallway. I asked several times if I could call home, but no one seemed to have a phone that I could use. Finally I was released from my bondage and taken to a room. The room had a phone, but at first I couldn't see it because I still had a neck brace on and couldn't turn my head around. Eventually, some one pointed it out to me and I was able to call home just before Dimples left the boys in the care of a neighbor and came looking for me.
Overall, it obviously could have been a lot worse and so I can't complain too much. I still have no idea why the guy stopped in front of me.
NOTE: I should mention that all this happened a couple of months ago, I have just been a blog slacker.
