I was biking in the beautiful California Gold Country. The Green Valley Road meanders up and down 2,000 to 3,000-foot hills, through wild, scenic, wooded areas, occasionally flanked by a ranch. Very little traffic, clear blue winter sky. It’s 4:00 PM, the sun is already low in the West. I have just climbed up to the tiny town of Rescue, 35 miles East of Sacramento. I turn around for the return trip, which shouldn’t take much more than an hour, since most of it is steeply downhill.
Just as I put the pedal to the metal on one of the few uphills on the way home, a terrific BANG! Before I realize what’s going on, I am briefly airborne, and then I crash on the pavement, painfully, where I roll onto my left side.
Through sheer survival instinct, I immediately jump up, almost spring-like, and I run to the side of the road. I see the red Jetta which has just run me over. It drives away and disappears in a right-hand turn a few hundred yards up the road. I think, “hit-and-run.” I sit down in the gravel, in shock, my left arm pulsating with excruciating pain.
A few minutes later, the driver of the red Jetta walks down to help me. Not a hit-and-run after all. My arm is broken and I have multiple lacerations. My helmet is fractured, but it saved me. My bicycle is mangled, my tights and my parka are bloody and torn.
I spend the rest of the day in the ER, and the next weeks navigating the bureaucracy - insurance companies, police reports, doctors’ offices. Plus weeks of discomfort. Trying to live, to get dressed, to go places, to type and get things done with the one hand and one arm that are not in a cast.
So the question is: what is the meaning of this painful experience?
! Humans have a natural tendency to believe that their own agency determines the outcomes which befall them. This gives us the illusion of power and control. Thus, my first thought is: What did I do to cause this? Obviously, I went biking on the Green Valley Road, where cyclists can get hit by cars.
! A second natural tendency is to believe in “learning experiences,” “teachable moments.” The obvious lesson here is that I should be more prudent. But what if I am already very prudent? I ride safely, I always wear a helmet, I never ride my bike at night. The only way to be more careful is to no longer go out on such roads, and to stay on bike trails with few or no automobiles.
! There is also the widespread belief that we gain strength and wisdom from adversity. This is called rationalization. I can assure you that I did not gain strength from this accident!
! Then there are those - this gets really silly - who feel that they deserve pain. They feel guilty. They feel that misfortune is their just punishment. Even though I am Jewish and I was raised Catholic, I am not aware of harboring such feelings - unless they are subconscious.
! Related to the last two, above, is the notion of “test,” - God, or someone, is testing you. The story of Job, sort of. An equally absurd theory.
! Another thing people say is, ”it could have been worse.” True, cyclists get killed every day. But should I consider myself lucky for having been practically run over, even though I lived?
! I had another theory: I recently received a chain letter - you know, the kind which says that if you don’t forward it, bad luck will befall you, and if you do, you’ll make a million. Well, I did forward it. And look what happened! This is called superstition.
! A more intelligent observation: Each year, slightly over 700 cyclists are killed on US roads, and 52,000 are injured. I have been road biking for many years, going out for a fifty-miler at least twice a week. This week, the statistical probabilities finally caught up with me.
! My final point is the most meaningful one: When taking into account population size and biking frequency, the US rate of bicycle deaths and injuries is six times higher than in the Netherlands. Granted, Holland is THE most bicycle-friendly country in the world. Still, the US is relatively bicycle-unfriendly. Bicycling in America is dangerous, and something should be done about this (See Sam McManis’ articles in the Sacramento Bee, January 30) Sorry for the America-bashing, guys, but this is a reasonable argument.
So what does my accident mean? Most of all, it means that shit happens. It would be nice if biking here were as safe as it is in Holland, but it isn’t. So there is no lesson. No teaching moment. No self-blame. No superstition. No meaning. No guilt. No fury against God. Just statistics and bad luck.leave comment here
16 comments:
This is one of your best posts.
Grant read this aloud at rehearsal last night.
As good as this is, I advise against further collisions with cars.
This is very touching. Thank you.
From my perspective, you are absolutely correct.
Tom,
I'm SO sorry to hear about your biking accident! My god! You might have been killed!
What good news that you are on the road to recovery.
I expect you will receive many responses from cyclists who have been hit and/or narrowly
escaped being hit by cars. I stopped riding a bike to work in Sunnyvale after experiencing
drivers who tried to hit me on purpose.
Take care,
Dear Tom,
This is your friend and colleague, Gail. My heart is so heavy and I thank God that you are alive. I would have been on the first plane out to see you if I had known about this. Is Anita okay. I am sure happy that you are alive and are healing. You are right that shit does happen. I have been having my own angst with God about how shitty life can be. I was kicked out of the Alabama Health Clinic last year because I asked the doctor about the medication that they placed me on for my fibroids and its interaction with my blood pressure. Apparently, I was challenging the doctor and the South. Anyway, they did not like me asking questions about my health. I did find out from my new doctor, a private upscale hospital, that I was right and indeed the medication caused my blood pressure to rise to 160/102. I was at stroke level.
One more note, I just lost a friend,physician by the name of Dr. John Griffith at Johns Hopkins University-He was my gynecologist and a very kind hearted man. He loved bycycling so much that he and his wife and two girls would vaction in Delaware near the beach so that he could bike throughout the vast terrain. The day before his trip he examined me and we talked and laughed and I remember saying to him, " have fun and enjoy your vacation" He was killed while bycycling. A 17 year old Mexican male ran him over. I heard the news early the next morning. Shock waves blanketed the campus community. His dad is the head Physician at the Johns Hopkins Medical campus. Tom, if only I could explain how much denial went through me. I had just visited my my doctor 24 hours ago. I mean how did I lose him to a cycling accident...... I still am sad about the incident. I am more grateful than ever that you are alive. I think that I would have gone over the deep end if you also had been killed. I still cant wrap my brain around this. Your statistics helped me to at least understand that these types of tragedies to happen and maybe I will be able to also heal some more about Dr. Griffith's death and put it into some type of realistic context.
Happy your are still here on this side of the earth, in hell with the rest of us!
Warm Regards,
Gail
Dr. Tom.
You can find him on the internet-He was cool and down to earth. You and Anita would have loved his personality. He was clean cut like you and he is the type of person that I know you would have liked as well.
Gail (Please read below)
John Griffith, M.D., M.P.H., 44, Johns Hopkins Faculty PhysicianRelease Date: 07/30/2007
John Griffith, M.D., M.P.H. The Johns Hopkins Medicine community mourns the untimely death of John Griffith, M.D., M.P.H., who was killed Saturday while bicycling south of Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. Griffith, 44, was a full-time assistant professor in The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of the Fibroid Center for the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Johns Hopkins.
“The Department faculty, postgraduate physicians, nurses and staff are deeply shocked and saddened at John’s sudden and tragic death,” said Harold Fox, M.D., director of gynecology and obstetrics at Johns Hopkins. “John was a rising star who has fallen from the sky. Our thoughts today are with his loving family.”
“John will be greatly missed,” said Edward D. Miller, M.D., dean and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife and children and the rest of his family, whose ties to Hopkins are deep and longstanding.” His father, Lawrence S.C. Griffith, M.D., is a cardiologist and professor of medicine at Hopkins.
Griffith graduated from Case Western University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned a bachelor of arts from Haverford College, as well as a master’s degree in public health from the UCLA School of Public Health. He completed his residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at the University Hospitals of Cleveland, where he was the executive chief resident.
In 2005, Griffith was named director of the Johns Hopkins Fibroid Center, a new clinical and research center within Johns Hopkins Medicine. At the Center, he led a team of one dozen faculty and 40 additional staff that includes interventional radiologists, reproductive endocrinologists, geneticists, nurses and public health experts.
“John was a true academic and leader, recognized regionally and nationally as an authority in the development and use of minimally invasive surgical techniques to treat uterine and cervical disorders,” said Fox. “He developed not only the Fibroid Center but also a superb endoscopic surgery training program for obstetrical and gynecologic surgeons. John improved the lives of countless women.”
Colleagues noted that Griffith was dedicated to linking clinical practice to research, considering this the best way to find and rapidly apply new medical or surgical approaches to the treatment of fibroids — mostly benign growths in the lining of the womb that can cause severe pain, bleeding and disability. His research also focused on why some women are more prone to develop them, findings that could shed light on what might prevent them. In addition to the treatment of uterine fibroids, Griffith's clinical interests included the management of abnormal Pap smears, ovarian cysts and abnormal menstrual periods.
Delaware police reports say that Griffith, who was vacationing with family in Rehoboth, was riding his bicycle southbound on the shoulder of Coastal Highway about a mile north of the Indian River Inlet Bridge when a car struck him after he stopped on the shoulder to repair a broken chain.
In addition to his parents, Griffith is survived by his wife, Liz, and children — Henry, Isabel and Anna.
Funeral services will be held Saturday, Aug. 4 at 11 a.m. at Grace United Methodist Church, 5407 North Charles St.
Tom, it was a good post. Your comments on agency were apt, and it may be a teachable moment--since readers are already using it. The others are rationalizations and excuses.
We live in communities and we each have responsibilities. You cannot control what others do, but you can be prepared for what they might do. The government can't prevent this entirely, but it can make things safer. Obviously in the Netherlands there is more public pressure to make biking safe.
I hope you are recovering and can get back on the bike soon.
"So what does my accident mean? ...No fault. No superstition. No meaning. No guilt. No fury against God. Just statistics and bad luck."
Tom! You know better than that. Your experience was filled with meaning. The lesson is not about meaninglessness but rather that meaning is not "out there". Meaning is "in here", inside of each of us and between all of us.
As with all enterprising action (all ACTION), your riding was filled with values-based intention and performed in terms of practiced skills--technology and method. In all aspects your action was based in prediction, an irreducible blend of the overtly acknowledged and the taken-for-granted.
Values->Intention->Method->Prediction->Action.
Like the wheels on your cycle driven forward by the power of your legs, this process produces meaning and its consequences in turn, create new meaning, ever-emergent.
"Knowing begins in experience but does not end in the experience in which it began". C. I. Lewis
The meaning of cycling and much more, will never be the same for you and for others who share your narrative. You will never ride your bike the same again. The driver of the car will never drive quite the same. Your visage in the minds of friends and family will never be the same again. These are not random transformations, they are the consequences of your enterprise--always an irreducible mix of efficacy, shit, and serendipity.
In conscious action OUR world is constantly emerging under the wheels of our restless minds and bodies, and what comes of that process is meaning, born anew in each enterprising moment and reflected in our story, told to others and ourselves, as a theory of "Who I am, you are, and we are."
It is the production of meaning that is the meaning of life. It is up to us to make of it what we WILL. Shall we call our production of meaning "meaningless"? Or should celebrate our capacity for creating meaning and work to fill it with shared meaning that aims to make a better world?
We have choices to make in this regard. This is what makes us human.
Marc
I want to add that all ACTION is risky business, no matter how trivial it may appear. But as conscious creatures, action is is what we do, even when our action is to be inactive--action never the less.
The tragic death Gail's friend, John Griffith, M.D, is filed with meaning. Gail's experience with doctors is filled with meaning.
Hi Tom,
living in Holland, I use my bike on a daily basis, from when I was 8, probably. But I use it as a means of transportation mostly. I was hit by a car when I was 15, broke my little finger. No serious accident since then. As most people here, I don't wear a helmet. When we see one, it's a child, a foreigner or an ATB-er/racer. Most deadly cycle accidents involve a truck taking a right turn, terrible.
Get okay soon, be sure to exercise as soon as you can.
Alle goeds, Paul
BTW: nice trick to turn you bad luck tale into a philosophical reflection!
Tom,
Jesus! Are you OK? What you described so well is the reason I don't ride on roads very much... too scary. I've had drivers miss me by inches and obviously think nothing of it. Virtually everyone I know who regularly road rides has had accidents or very close calls.
Tom:
I'm so sorry to hear about this. Virtually all of our friends who are avid bike riders in town have been "mirrored," run off the road, etc. We really need first-class bike lanes. Hope you are healing.
I am incredibly touched by the flood of response. Thank you.
Gail, your elaborate posts are so to the point. Dr. Griffith killed on the road, like so many others each year.
Gordon and Paul, your remarks about biking, the Netherlands, etc, echo mine.
Don and Scott, I appreciate your comments, too, especially since you have been avid bikers yourselves.
Marc Hersch’s comments are amazing. He shot right through the fatalistic (or existentialist?) notions in my post. As a true Weberian sociologist, he reminds us of the opposite of what I said, that social action is always meaningful. Wow!
Tom,
Over the years I have been repeatedly pummeled by the consequences of my actions--cycling, rock climbing, skiing, sailing, and even just crossing the street. I can honestly say that I am lucky to be alive. I should have said in my comment that I am pleased to learn that you are also still alive. That goes without saying!
My worldview, informed as it is by Weber, Marx Mead, and others as well, comes down to being in love with the process. I am always looking for the pony in the pile of dung and although I have yet to find him, the digging continues to be quite fun!
So be well and keep having fun. Just remember, life is a risky business and the more living you do the greater the odds of getting pummeled.
Prof. Kando,
Feel better soon. Mary T
Thanks, Mary
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