blue

I glanced up and saw a swish of blue. Something was wrong.

We were on our 3rd day of a 14 day bicycle trip from Eugene, Oregon up through the edges of Portland on to Astoria and then down the Pacific Coast. There were 12 riders. The trip was to be about 500 miles.

Several had blue panniers and blue bicycles, so I could not tell who it was, I rode as fast.

All day we had been riding on good roads, some of it on exclusive bicycle trails, but we had a stretch on an old concrete highway. Just a few miles. We were going down hill and were going at a good pace. It was one of those narrow highways from the 30’s without a shoulder, and often with an 8 or 10” drop off the edge. Apparently the rider had dropped off that edge and crashed.

I was the leader of the group, though I rode last. I always wanted to make sure everyone was ahead of me.

When I got there I could see some one lying on the highway. It was Linda, our youngest daughter. Miriam has always been calm in times of crisis, but this time she was delirious. “My baby, she is dead.” “My baby, she is dead.”

I am not a medical person, but I got off my bicycle fast and felt the side of Linda’s throat, her heart was beating, but she was unconscious. I assured Miriam that she was not dead. Deanna was already directing traffic around our injured rider. I jumped up to help.

Shorts, white helmets and fingerless gloves. We took over until the police arrived.

The third car stopped, the driver said he had a radio (this was before cell phones) and that he could call for an ambulance, if we liked. “Please do” was all I could say except “thank you.”

It did not take too long for an ambulance, two fire trucks and a police cruiser or three to arrive, thoroughly blocking traffic.

The paramedics were thoroughly professional, of course. They got their board and carefully moved Linda onto it. She was still unconscious and they were making sure that if her neck was broken they would not cause added injury.

Then as suddenly as it all started, everyone was gone.

The ambulance driver told us where they were taking her, it was a hospital we had passed some hours before. He outlined a shorter route.

I turned over the responsibility for the other riders to Sid, our trusted son-in-law. Linda and Miriam had gone in the ambulance, their bicycles had gone another direction with the fire engines. We retrieved the bicycles later.

There was way too much emotion for me to wait for any of the other riders, so I rode on.

Tomorrow, chapter two.