Life at a "Swell's" pace

Yesterday afternoon, while Skylar was out riding his bike through our city, he wrecked. But, he didn't just wreck, we don't know what happened.

We get a text that he had wrecked and needed to be picked up. Thinking it was just a bike crash and he didn't want to ride home because of bruised feelings and scrapes, we asked where he was. He said, "At the end of the street." Meaning, our street we live on. The Mr. and I both looked at each other thought, 'what the heck?!'

After walking to the end of the street we realized, this was more than just a simply bike crash, something had happened.

He was pretty beat up and his helmet was cracked, his bike bent and scraped up, and he couldn't remember what had happened.

I was immediately pissed. The Mr. and I came to the conclusion that he needed to go to the hospital ASAP!

Our city has an Urgent Care and we took him there. Assuming they would just patch him up and "possibly" need to patch him up with some stitches, but it was much worse than we had suspected.

The doctor on call checked his bangs and bruises out and cleaned him up, but also determined that he had a concussion, and told us that we weren't the first people to come in Urgent Care with a similar story. The others that had come in had been hit by a car. I was livid! How dare someone hit my baby and drive away, leaving him in the street. I asked if there were police needing to be involved, but because of the hit and run, there was nothing we could really do other than report it. Which, we did.

Needless to say, he was right, nothing could be done other than ask neighbors if they had doorbell cameras, saw anything, or security footage that faced the street-there was nothing. Someone had hit my child, drove off, and sadly, he remembers nothing from that day. My heart sank.

The city we live in doesn't take to bike riders all that well, for whatever reason. We know the risks when we ride our bikes here, and this isn't the first time a member of our "family" has been hit by a car. The Mr. was hit on a busy street, in the open, with many cars around us. I was hit by a minivan the first year we moved to this city. The city is slowly putting in bike lanes, but it just isn't enough if drivers don't pay attention, or respect bicycle riders, no matter who they are.

This accident adds to our frustrations and nervousness of riding through our own city, where we live. We try to avoid the city streets now, because this accident was way too close of a call. I do hope that the driver is caught, or at least has some sort of remorse, knowing that he left a child to suffer in the road.

After a few weeks, Skylar's injuries are healing, but he still has no memory of the entire day, much less, his accident.

If you pass a bicycler, no matter who they are, give them at least six feet of space. Don't crowd them, and definitely don't speed past them. At any given moment that bicycle rider could lose control of their bike and fall into the lane of travel. And, if you come up to a stop sign with a bicycler, don't be a jerk, give them the right of way. Remember, SHARE THE ROAD!