Disaster Strikes

we had woken up early so we could get to our days goal Fargo early. riding about 85 miles we pulled in to Fargo around 430. we were excited to be in a city as well as to be in North Dakota. we set up cam and then showered. being in a city we had a big night planed. we were gonna go have dinner and then go see a movie. we eat at the food court in a mall because it was right next to the movie theater. we saw star trek. previous to seeing this movie i knew nothing about star trek but this did not detract from the movie at all it was very good. when we got out of the movie it was poring rain. Andrew had his computer because he had been using wifi at the mall, he tucked it under his jacket and we headed back to the camp sit. a few blocks form the movie theater we were crossing an intersection Andrew was riding in front of me with one hand holding his computer and one on the handle bars. he didn't see the car that was crossing threw the intersection till it was to late. he couldn't get his hand on the brake soon enough and he hit the car. luckily no one was hurt and his wheel was just a little bent. the car had the right of way so it was kind of Andrews fault. he was kind of pist about the incident after it first happened but then cooled down. we fixed his bike so it was at least ridable and headed for the camp ground. as we were riding we were talking about how we were lucky and it could have been way worse at least it was only the bike that was messed up. we realized that we had made a wrong turn so we corrected our course and continued on still talking about how lucky we were that no one was hurt. we were riding down a a 4 lane road two going one way to going the other. we were going with traffic in single file, i had a red light on the back of my bike and Andrew had a with light on the front of his, he was riding in front of me. so we just riding along and a car buzzed by me and then swerved in front of me and hit Andrew!!!!!!! when the car hit him he went flying almost 10 feet in the air and then landed on the pavement with a thud. i screamed and couldn't believe what i just saw it was very surreal. after the car hit him he sped off. i jumped off my bike and ran to where Andrew was lying unconscious in a bloody puled on the street. immediately two cars stopped and both drivers one male one female rushed over to where Andrew was. in about 20 second he regained consciousness. the two people that stopped stayed with Andrew and made sure he didn't move while i called 911. with in minutes the ambulance police and fire trucks had arrived. as the medics were putting Andrew on a stretcher i was telling the cop what happened. i locked my bike and what remained of Andrews bike to a tree and went to the hospital in the ambulance. i was kind of in shock i was shaking uncontrollably. during the 5 min drive to the hospital i got myself under control. Andrew was clearly very concussed he kept asking the same questions over and over again. "what happened?" "was i waring a helmet?"(he wasn't, we wernt going far so he had left it at the tent) "was it my fault?". the emt's in the ambulance told me that they couldn't locate any major injuries but they wouldn't know for sure until they did a cat scan. when we got to the hospital every one turned to me for all of Andrew personal info, all i knew was his name and age and i couldn't even spell his last name. i was sent to the waiting room where i was soon questioned again by the cops. after the questioning they told me that they had caught the guy because another car had fallowed him. i turned out that he the driver was wasted. the doctors came in and told me that Andrew was very lucky he had a bad concussion and a very small crack in his scull but that was it besides a lot of cuts a scrap. there was some bleeding in his brain but they expected for it to be gone by morning. he was going to stay in the hospital over night so they could keep an eye on him. the cop gave me a ride back to the bikes where we put them in the back of the car and then went to the camp ground. once at the tent i made my self a cup of tea to calm down and then went to bed it was about 3 in the morning. i woke up at 7 and talked to Andrew he was going to be totally fine. my original plan was to take a cab to the hospital but i did a little trail magic fishing by telling the people in the rv next to me what had happened and they gave me a ride to the hospital. Andrew go discharged from the hospital that afternoon and we relocated to a motel. we just chilled in the motel all day. Andrews girlfriend who was in Montana was driving to pick him up. although he was going to be fine the tour was over for him the docs said he shouldn't do any thing real active for a few weeks. bally Andrews gf showed up last night, they both packed up all his stuff and headed out this morning. sooooo now i am back on my own for the last stretch. i did the calculations last night and i have about 1000 miles left till jhole. i estimate this will take about 2 weeks. the last two days have been crazy i am putting up a zero today to recoup. tomorrow i will hit the trail again.

link to news article---> http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/118487/group/home/

-NEO