--T&M.]]> Some days start out way too well…

After adding to the How to Steal a Bike post, with some of my story, Treadly and Me invited me to tell the rest. I’m not looking for sympathy, just take it as a cautionary tale.

Sunny day on a suburban street in Adelaide (not Paul's street)

The last day of October, sun shining, forecast mid 20′s, and committed with a work meeting that could last all day. And all I want is to go for a ride to nowhere in particular, before taking the kids to a friend’s Halloween street party.

Headed off to my meeting—In the car with heavy things to carry. Had a dream run with the traffic, not that Adelaide actually has traffic, and got where I was going in record time. The meeting went the way meetings never do, and finished by 11 a.m. Right, time for a bike ride this afternoon!

Headed home full of enthusiasm for an afternoon on the bike. Got home just before 12, pulled the bike out of the garage, added some air to the tyres and parked it at the front door, same as every other day. Left the front door open and went to fill up some bidons and get by bike gear on. My wife walked in the door having just got home also, carrying lunch. Excellent, no need to find my own!

Much less fun

After 10 minutes eating my lunch, and now ready to leave, headed back to the front door…

Errr… did you move my bike on your way in?

No, it was just outside the door where you always leave it.

So some $@#@%’s stolen it then?

Suddenly the day seemed so much less fun.

Nice area, quiet street

Let’s put in perspective where I live, and why leaving the bike outside unlocked seemed like a good idea. My street is a short U-shaped one, near the end of a group of streets (are they groups, gaggles, flocks, herds—who knows really) with only one way in or out, by car at least. My end of the street is relatively isolated and the only people you ever see who don’t live here, have a reason to be there: Couriers, postmen, locals heading down to the reserve accessible from the bottom of the street to walk the dog.

My house is below street level, the front door is quite a way from the road, and on the day required a walk past my two closely parked cars to get to it. In general, you will find ours and/or our neighbours garage doors open, kids and adults bikes outside, whatever, you get the picture. Nice area, quiet street, rarely any strangers, nothing stolen or broken into nearby in living memory. And the next door neighbour’s a cop.

And now my bike was gone. The new one I’d only had for 8 weeks.

Three big mistakes

I got in the car to go and report the theft to the police, wondering if my insurance was going to cover this. My wife headed out as well, thinking that maybe someone had just ridden up the hill to the shop and left it outside.

I decided a quick circuit of the block on the way might a good idea in case the thief was still nearby.

BIG MISTAKE NUMBER 1.

Ran into three school kids, in (sort of) school uniform, 16-17 yo, walking up the hill with my bike. Thought to myself that being a public area, with people about, passing traffic, and these being school kids, a bit of an Oi, that’s my bike kind of approach would see them drop it and run.

I guess that was MISTAKE NUMBER 2.

Instead I got abused, and they tried to run past me. I grabbed the saddle of the bike on the way past and got a reaction along the lines of It’s ours now, so f… off or we’ll bash you. I still hadn’t gotten loud or abusive with them, there were 3 of them and I was at least a bit cautious, and told them I wanted my bike.

That was MISTAKE NUMBER 3.

Punched by one of them, and restrained by one or more, I managed to knee one in the nuts before some brave soul hit me from behind, knocking me unconscious (briefly).

I opened my eyes to find myself on the road. I couldn’t move or feel any of my limbs. I could hear a car approaching and hoped someone might help me. No. The car slowed, moved into the other lane and drove around me. Some sensation started returning which took away the fear I was going to be quadriplegic at least.

Slowly got up off the road and could see the friendly thieves further up the road with my bike. I yelled out for help and started staggering towards them, noticing 3 Council workers or contractors standing beside the road—I think they had probably seen the whole incident. Of course none of them did a thing, although later the police said one of them may have phoned 000. Getting to the nearby cross road I saw my wife in her car, and pointed at the kid on my bike, who had separated from his mates.

Vague

From there the next few minutes are very vague. Somewhere in there I phoned the police, and got back to my car and drove it over the intersection to find my wife. The bike was with her. Apparently on his own, and being pursued by a car, the little angel wasn’t so brave. He’d dumped the bike .

Paramedic-to-patient

Sample cervical spine (not Paul's x-ray)

Collapsed again, had terrific pain in my shoulder that I had surgery on a few months ago, and my neck felt weird. I told my wife to call an ambulance. Listened to her getting frustrated with the call taking algorithm I normally manage to bypass (I’m an ambo when I’m not riding my bike). Got taken to a local hospital, where I know most of the staff, given enough drugs to stop an elephant, and X-rayed till I glowed in the dark.

Turned out no-one was really sure if there were any fractures in my shoulder because of the recent surgery. What they were sure of was the fracture to my spine at C6. Back in an ambulance for the ride to the Royal Adelaide for a thorough spinal review.

By just before midnight I was on my way home. I have a broken spinous process on C6. C6 is just above the lump you can feel at the base of your neck (C7), and the spinous process is the bit that sticks out the back, as shown in this example x-ray:

Instructions were no lifting for 6 weeks, spend lots of time laying flat until the pain gets less, take these drugs and come back in two weeks to see if I need any other treatment. The bone will probably never rejoin, but it’s not structural so shouldn’t cause any problems once everything heals. OK, that explains the transient quadriplegia, a violent shock to C6 obviously temporarily upset my spinal cord, and I won’t go into the physiology of that here.

Two weeks later…

Back for review 2 weeks later—more X-rays—Oh, look at this, C5 is broken too, but not as badly as C6. Great. Ta. Thanks for sharing the good news Doc.

Still off work for 2 more weeks, then OK for modified duties—no lifting until at least the 6 week mark. Considering I like my job almost as much as cycling I’m not impressed. And if it’s not structural why can’t I lift anything? Why is it called a clay-shoveller’s fracture? Because in the old days people would LIFT TOO HARD shovelling clay, and tear them off. So it sounds kind of important to me.

Lucky for me I have a very understanding employer, and I’ve been offered quite a good training job for the next few months. Should give everything time to heal properly anyway. And with the 9–5 routine in place of shift work commuting by bike should work out better. If I can find somewhere secure to keep it in the building that is.

Riding again

Started riding, gently, this week. Suddenly 20km hurts after a month of doing nothing physical at all; looks like I’ve got a bit of work to do. To get back on the bike though, cost me nearly $350 to put right the damage the mongrels managed to do in the 10-15 minutes they had the bike.

Persons of interest

The Police have taken things pretty seriously, but I don’t expect much. It’s already a month since this happened, so it’s less likely they’ll catch anyone as time passes. They have been pushing the case on Crimestoppers, with video of some persons of interest so who knows? Besides, underage offenders will only claim they didn’t understand what they were doing and just get told to apologise.

Now all I need is to figure out how to combine cycling and ambulance work without leaving Adelaide, but that’s another story…