Mountain Bike Accident Tuesday 11 February 2020

Mountain Bike Accident. Tuesday 11 February 2020

Please please please be okay!  For you, your parents, wife, children. Oh God, spare him, please!

What an incredibly fearful moment it was at around 15:45 on that Tuesday afternoon, witnessing a strong young man crash-land his mountain bike coming over a ramp (the ramp he built himself, which he had probably jumped many times before!). I was facing the ramp just after jumping it myself (very carefully, I might add), when I saw a man approaching and then – at great speed and height – entering the ramp, jumping with ease, but then crash-landing, hitting the ground with his head and left shoulder first, the impact let him bounce back onto his right side. His head was bent into his chest as he lay in a bundle on the ground. I dropped my bike and ran as fast as I could to anchor his body between my legs because I was convinced he had broken his neck and had to be kept from moving.

There was a strange rattling sound in his throat and his eyes were glazed over; he was twitching, just a rolled-up bundle of man. He was unconscious for 5 to 6 minutes. I prayed and cried, asking how this could be happening to a man riding and jumping the ramp with such vigour and self-confidence?

My pleading with God for Andrew in that moment came from my years of caring for my own two disabled adult children. I did not want that for Andrew or for all the people who loved him. I did not want this healthy life to change forever right before my eyes!