St Paul Classic Bike Tour- a story...

I have found that I deal better with things, when I share them with people, and let the universe take over... and so I'm sharing my story of our St Paul Classic accident. Bruce (my mom's boyfriend) rode 5000 miles last summer (he's retired), so he's an experienced rider.

We were going down the hill on Mounds Blvd, just before the rest stop, I was going too fast for comfort and started to slow down. Bruce flew past me, and his bike started to wobble. I knew he was going to fall. I slowed, and unclipped as fast as possible, running back up the hill. It was a mess, but a guy who lived right there- Jim, was a blessing (he stored our bikes as well). Long story short… Bruce had a small stroke causing the crash. There was a LOT of blood, and some scary moments that I can’t get out of my head. Thankfully mom wasn’t there to see it (she didn't ride due to her own current injury), by the time she got to the hospital, he was pretty well bandaged. He has 4 fractured ribs, 16 stitches in his nose, a separated shoulder, and a LOT of road rash. His helmet has a chip out of the front, and a lot of scratches, and a fracture on the left side. My mom just emailed to say that they are taking him for another MRI on his hip, since he still cannot put pressure on it. The bleeding in his brain was minimal, and has stopped, and there are no side-effects from the stroke itself (just the crash).

It’s been a tough couple of days for all of us! I guess I can say he’s doing ‘ok” now, he will be at Regions until he can get out of bed and walk on his own. It won’t be today! We could use some fellow bikers happy thoughts! It's going to be a long road to recovery!

It also made me think about some things... like I never carry my insurance card (take a photo of it, and make it part of your ICE contact in your phone), but I do carry an expired ID, and wear my MED Alert bracelet whenever I work out. I hope this incident takes me out of the running of ever needing this information!

Also- a shout out to all the volunteers, and just riders, who stopped to help re-direct traffic down the hill. We had atleast 3 nurses and a physician stop to ask if we needed help before the ambulance got there. Thanks for letting me share the story, sometimes you just need to put it out there!

Be safe out there BT'ers!