By Robert Israel
The EMTs lifted me off the street, my bicycle in a heap nearby. A crowd of curious onlookers watched intently, and while lying on the gurney, I noticed a barechested young man raise his can of beer to salute me.
The nurses at the hospital administered an intravenous tube of morphine, and soon everything around me became fuzzy and numb, and the fluorescent lights above the gurney where I lay no longer hurt my eyes. Another tube pumped fluids into me. The emergency room doctor slowly unraveled the gauze that held my almost-severed ear in place.
“There’s nothing we can do for you here,” she said. “You’ll have to see a surgeon at another hospital.”
Supposedly I agreed to this prognosis, but I’ll be damned if I remember anything that was said to me as I drifted off, the pain finally lessening to a throb. Soon I was in another waiting area, in another hospital, my tee-shirt all bloody, my head bandaged. The mercurochrome on my leg had dried into a dark ochre stain around the wound. I could feel something wrong with my head, a slow ooze around my lacerated right ear, a tug on my chin where the bandage closed another wound.
Within hours I was stitched up and sent on my way, the good doctors performed what all the kings’ men and all the kings’ horses couldn’t do for Humpty Dumpty: they put me back together again. And thanks to Robin, my life partner, I made it back to the house where we were staying, and I found my way to bed.
In the days that followed I heard stories of other injuries told by road warriors — victims of hit and run accidents in Boston — who took me aside in coffee shops or in restaurants, and, freely, and without provocation, shared stories of their mishaps, the ensuing lawsuits, the tragedies of losing loved ones, the totaled cars, the ruined bicycles, the aches that never go away all these years later.
I had the stitches removed. I got back on my bike for long rides down the Minuteman Bike Trail, safe and busy, but nowhere near cars. I bought a new helmet. The wounds healed. The months passed. The trauma faded from memory.
And then there were news stories, reports of other tragedies far greater than mine, blood that was spilled in the city streets, accidents involving bicycles in the suburbs that claimed lives, children whose lives were full of promise meeting tragic ends, horrible reports that arrived with each day. And with each news report, I relived that day and the accident.
Over time I put my own injuries in perspective and moved on, thankful for the life that continues to unfold, more patient with the healing process that always takes longer and reminds us of our fragilities.
If I wasn’t humble before the accident, I have been made more humble now. And if I find myself tearful as I listen to each new report of a tragedy, or an accident, or a loss of life, it is out of grief for those that have been hurt, not self-pity. My tears stream without control out of sympathy for those who have endured pain, and out of a recognized bond between me and others who struggle daily to maintain dignity and health.
This Thanksgiving, surrounded by the abundance of the harvest and my family, I reflect on the accident, the aftermath, and those that struggle to recover, and I count my blessings.
Robert Israel: Writer 