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On the afternoon of 22nd July, Bloody Good Husband received a text from my phone:

Hi BGH - Tori from Ambulance Victoria - I’m a paramedic. Taking Andrea to Alfred Hospital. Please call if you see this message.

BGH did not really enjoy reading this message.

A few minutes earlier, Mark, a fifty-something accountant from Melbourne, was driving along in his oversized Ford Ranger dual cab ute, happily looking down at the world from approximately fifteen metres off the ground.

Mark was extremely busy doing something other than looking at the road as he barrelled across a four-lane bridge on Swan Street. Quite unexpectedly, he found his Ford Ranger driving into the back of a cyclist named Andrea.

Mark told the paramedics that I went flying onto the tram tracks.

He also told them he was driving at 40km/h. Mark was in the outside lane on a 60km/h road.

Trams were stopped in both directions, and two kind bystanders came and held an umbrella over me while I repeatedly asked where my shoe was.

I’m told the location of my shoe was of primary importance to me for the 15 mins I was lying on the road.

Mark called triple zero, pausing only to tell me for the fourteenth time that my shoe was next to my foot.

Bloody Good Husband left work and sped to the hospital, where he found me in the emergency department decked out in a C-spine collar, allegedly busy entertaining the Irish nurses with tales of my Guinness-fuelled architecture exchange in Dublin.

I have no memory of any of this.

I was very thirsty. Upon BGH’s arrival, I exclaimed:

“I’m parched as. Do you got a bucket and a hose, bro? I need to get wet, ASAP.”*

*If this line doesn’t sound familiar, where were you in 2008? Probably not Australia or New Zealand. See: Beached-As whale.

I then proceeded to repeat this line on loop for the next few hours. BGH was stoked to receive this insight into our future old age together.

I have no memory of this.

I also couldn’t remember our wedding. Or where we lived. Or any of the numbers the paramedics and nurses repeatedly asked me to remember.

I’m told that at some point during my hospital stay, my legs started shaking violently and continued to do so for two hours. BGH tells me I suddenly exclaimed: “My legs want to shake so I need to let them shake, because Dan Siegel told me I need to let them shake so that I won’t get PTSD!!!”

I was very pleased with my legs.

I meant Peter Levine, the trauma specialist, not Dan Siegel, the mindfulness researcher, but BGH decided it was not the time for pedantry.

I have no memory of this.

Last year I did a somatic trauma integration training in which I heard a story about Peter Levine getting hit by a car. On the way to the hospital, severely injured, he’d found himself educating the paramedics on the importance of letting his body shake and tremor, to discharge the trauma and reduce the risk of PTSD.

Thank cripes my severely concussed brain remembered Peter’s words, even though I called him Dan.

Somewhat miraculously, most of my body fared much better than my bike, which got crushed under Mark’s unnecessarily large wheels.

Three months on, I’m much improved (and I remember our wedding again… though not the accident). Peskily, I’m still experiencing some lingering concussion and physical symptoms which make it difficult to work.

But I’m feeling very lucky to be alive.

I’ve been forced to slow down and REALLY look after my Neville, my body, and my nervous system… they were all rather put out by the whole thing.

All three have been very busy writing a formal letter to request that the universe might consider easing off on the never-ending physical challenges of the past six years…

Particularly in the form of Ford Rangers to the head.

Neville is also experiencing bouts of rage towards Mark, who consulted his feelings and decided an apology was not necessary when we spoke a couple of weeks after the accident.

In his words, “There’s trauma on BOTH sides.”

Neville has much to say on the matter, but for now this screen is making me feel seasick, so that’s a story for another day!

In case you’ve been nervously waiting to hear what happened to my shoe, I’m pleased to report that he survived the Ford Ranger and has been happily re-paired with his mate.

x

Andrea

PS — If this post made you think of someone (a cyclist, a Ford Ranger driver, a lover of paired-up shoes?!), please send it to them! It would make concussed Neville’s day.

PPS — if you’re one of the lovely folk who have joined my email list in the past few months, hi! You may have forgotten who I am and why you subscribed while I’ve been MIA, but thanks for being here!