The Slice: Crash course in bike safety

I heard a thump.

It was too substantial to be a pine cone hitting the roof. And I was pretty sure I hadn’t forgotten a beverage in the freezer again.

A glance out a front window offered no clues.

You know how it is with mystery sounds. They come and go.

But a few minutes later, I must have heard something else. Because I went out the front door and looked to the right of the yard, which is on a corner.

A young woman lay sprawled in the street near a bicycle on its side. One of her sneakers was several feet away. Three or four people knelt or stood by her.

A couple of cars were parked in the street, in a place where no one ever parks. One vehicle had a sizeable dent in the front end and a cracked windshield.

This was Monday afternoon. Remember how spring-like it was? I had the day off and had gone for a bike ride myself that morning.

In the seconds it took to stride from my porch to the accident scene, I could hear the young woman crying out in pain and I saw that someone with a cell phone was calling for an ambulance.

Another woman, who must have been with the downed cyclist, gently patted the victim and said “I’m here.”

Some guy asked if anyone had any medical training and a fortyish woman with blond hair and purposeful expression walked up and squatted by the victim.

“OK,” she said. “We’re not going to move her.”

Someone got a blanket.

Blood trickled onto the victim’s face from some unseen wound. She kept her eyes closed and gingerly put one hand on a leg.

The woman who had responded to the call for someone with medical training glanced at the person patting the victim and saying her name. “Did she have a helmet on?”

“No.”

I can’t recall if the fire truck was sounding its siren when it pulled up.

Today’s Slice question: What’s something you wish you knew then (that you know now)?