One year ago this coming Friday, Maya was hit while riding her bike. I was home stacking firewood when I received a call on my cell phone. "Maya's been hit by a car!" her friend said. I mistook the panic in her voice as suppressed laughter, and I told her not to joke with me. "Wait," she said, "let me pass you over to this man." It was then that I heard the sirens just one block from home, and a coldness crept up my legs. The EMT that I spoke to first assured me that Maya was ok, but that indeed she had been hit. I wasted no time after hanging up in getting over to the scene of the accident. Maya suffered a concussion but was saved by the fact that she was wearing her helmet, which had cracked right down the middle. The massive dent in the hood of the driver's car was testament to the force of the blow absorbed by the helmet. In addition to the concussion, Maya had quite a few scrapes, none of which were serious.
In today's video, I show the intersection where Maya was hit. It is a staggered intersection and tricky to navigate for anybody. The girls approached the intersection as I do in the video. They looked both ways, but none of the girls reported seeing the car, which came from the East (on the right), just like the cars in this video clip. Instead of turning right and continuing to the crosswalk, as I do in the video clip, the girls cut diagonally across the intersection. Maya was in the front, looking back to see if her friends were following. She collided head on with the oncoming car. The driver had slowed and swerved to her right, but she was unable to avoid the collision with Maya. Everybody learned something from this experience, and things could have turned out so much worse. Maya has become the poster child for bicycle helmet safety. The next day, she cradled her helmet in her lap while recovering on the sofa. "I love my helmet," she cooed. "Good, good, helmet."
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