I get hit by a minivan and take out Rachael in the process...

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Drivers in Korea suck. Shoulder-checking is a pretty much unheard-of habit around here, and there's a general tendency to only watch for vehicles larger than your own, meaning that pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists are taking their lives into their hands every time they leave the house.

On Friday night, Rachael and I saddled up and set course for the big Masan/Changwon bridge...what was supposed to be a beautiful, roughly 60-km ride on a nice warm night. Well, about 6.5 km into the ride as we were just getting into the congested area of Masan, a van to my left decided to turn right. A split second before he actually hit me, I realized what was going on and tried to evade it by heading hard right, but the van ended up hitting my left leg (I had dirt from his van from my ankles up to the top of my thigh). During this I looked down and realized that his wheels were turned so sharply that they were actually attempting to climb on top of my front wheel. Thankfully he just pushed my front wheel sharply to the right (I think accounting for my injuries) and bent the brake disc, but I managed to not get fully run over by him. During this whole thing, Rachael, who was initially behind me, had nowhere to go (curb to her right, van/me to her left) and she got caught up in the melee. Rachael got the worst of it: a broken knee so far...we're waiting for CT scan results to be back to see if that's all.

Few pics...dirt on my sock from the minivan

Rachael's busted kneecap (chunk missing on top right):

My back...according to the doctor, the different shades of muscle mean that some are stretched, others compressed...I have "soft tissue damage" or a sprain...possibly more. I was fine on Friday, started to hurt a little on Saturday and started hurting a lot on Sunday (when I got the X-ray done). So far I'm looking at painkillers and physio, but (just as the doctor predicted it) it's getting slightly worse, so we'll see what happens...

Initially, for about a minute or two after the crash, the driver did nothing...sat there in his car, tinted windows (another idiotic Korean trend) up and lights on...Rachael and I were concerned that he might try to make a run for it, as many drivers here do after an accident, so I persuaded him to step out of his vehicle and deal with the situation :)

He took Rachael and our bikes to the hospital and his friend (possibly coworker?) took me to the hospital. Thankfully the doctor spoke English rather well, so we could get our point across and a huge number of our concerned friends showed up (some Korean), which meant a lot...thanks everyone!!!

The driver of the minivan was incredibly apologetic and more than a little scared and thankfully we have over a dozen witnesses (friends, nurses, doctors) who heard him admit fault both in Korean and English, which we hope will make further proceedings easier. He claimed he couldn't see us...which is a little ridiculous considering I had 8 strobing LEDs in the back and Rachael had 7. Plus, I had 5 strobing LEDs in the front and Rachael had a solid one...we weren't exactly invisible. Since then I bought some more lights/replaced the broken one...here's what the bike looks like now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJWduZI0hhc

Rachael was admitted to the hospital and given morphine...accounting for her few hours of happiness:

I left at around 10:30 p.m. and the next day headed to the shop to replace a few things on my bike. Both discs got bent in the pile-up, one of my taillights was busted, and the grip on the side where the guy hit me was ripped. All in all, not too bad, a little under $100, pretty good considering how bad things were.

New discs...

Rachael's bike seems to have done well too, so far it's a seat and possibly a head set and maybe some paint damage from hitting my rear tire, plus whatever else we find once Rachael is out of the hospital and can give it the once-over.

The rest of the weekend was spent keeping poor Rachael company in hospital (and going to an awesome dinner party at Ross and Nicole's!!!), so not much to report other than the crash aftermath stuff.

We're supposed to talk to the guy who hit us today, but we're considering getting a lawyer...we both have injuries, damages and Rachael is missing work...and things are only getting started (the hospital runs on about quarter-steam on weekends).

So...that's our sad little story for now haha...stay tuned for updates, I'm sure there'll be more.

Stay safe, everyone!
T