For no other reason than to scoop the Emerald on an otherwise unremarkable story, I describe to you the scene at the intersection of 13th and Hilyard roughly twenty minutes ago on my walk home from class: a young man wearing flip-flop sandals over socks, lying motionless on his backside next to a very nice bike in the street. There is no visible blood. A pickup truck with police lettering idling in the intersection, lights flashing with no siren.

Two black-shirted Fire Rescue personnel kneeling afront the fallen rider and one pink-shirted matronly lady kneeling behind him, asking questions/ providing instructions that are inaudible from the sidewalk. A maroon minivan is also idling in the street, but it moves curbside on Hilyard and another black-shirted authority approaches, asking questions, maybe looking at insurance info. There is no one in handcuffs. A fine assortment of gawkers on all four corners, asking questions of one another regarding the obvious. The fallen rider puts an arm into the air (right only) and squeezes his fist. He moves his right knee up and down. He tries to sit up, looks at the crowd, and one of the Fire Rescue guys puts out an arm, presumably saying, “Slow down, guy; take it easy.” He lies down again. Traffic is still moving, slowly, through the intersection, and no one is trying to stop it. Sacred Heart Medical Center is directly behind the fallen rider’s location in the street. Everyone wonders when the stretcher will arrive, or whether perhaps the fallen rider will walk away without one. I don’t have time to find out.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 27th, 2005 at 14:37 by Bryan and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.