When I was 16, I was hit by a Ford Explorer that ran a red light on my bicycle. Miraculously, I walked away with just a couple of broken teeth and some scrapes. This was at the peak of physical fitness in my life. I am 5'6" and back then I weighed 135 lbs and could bench press 280. I was short, wide little wall of muscle.
She hit me in my right hip and I was twisting my torso to the right so I could put my hands out and protect my ribs. My hands left dents in her hood. She was going about 30. Then she hit the breaks and threw me a good 20 feet.
I never lost consciousness, as soon as I hit the ground I jumped up and started screaming at her. Time slowed down and I had time enough to get real, real angry over what a stupid asshole would blatantly disregard a traffic signal. I made her cry. Some soccer mom late to pick up the kids. It took a full 60-90 seconds to feel any pain, and when I did my bones on my right side hurt so bad I thought they were broken, so I sat down and pushed on things to see if they moved wrong. They were fine.
At 19, I had some occasional pain in my low/back hip which I mostly ignored since it was so infrequent.
At 23, I was bending over to pick something up and I felt/heard a pop and immediately fell over with excruciating pain all down my left leg and in my back.
I stayed like that for 9 months while I tried chiropractors and talked to lawyers. It was too late to sue the driver they said. I had only asked her to buy me a new bike, pay to get the two teeth that broke fixed, and for the ambulance that came. I refused to go with them but they sent me a bill anyway. I went to the hospital by myself later to get xrays and they said nothing was broken.
I think in total, the lady cut a check for 2500. My back surgery costed 18,000. They said it was too long ago and it would not be able to be proven that it was her fault, but I know it's because where she hit me and my position that my disc basically fell out seven years later. Oh well, you move on. Guess I'm lucky she didn't kill me.
There was an angel watching out for me, but I guess he let my spine get injured to teach me some humility and that I was not indeed invincible after all. Seriously, there was this one guy who came out of nowhere. I just felt a hand on my shoulder and he asked me if I was ok and if I would be needing any more help. He said he saw the whole thing and it looked pretty nasty. I told him I was OK and looked away for a second, and when I looked back he had vanished. I have a photo of it in my mind, there was all this open space in the direction in which he left and he was not there.
Then a van pulled away from one of the pumps, and behind it I saw my dad pumping gas, so I completely forgot about the man who disappeared and limped over to him. He was like what are you doing here? And as I got closer, he could see the blood on my face and the scrapes, the look on his face. I told him the lady in the Explorer over there hit me. He ran over to the driver side window, leaned in and all I heard was "Why you run over my boy!?"
I laughed. He's an Italian immigrant and he speaka the how you say, the broken ah English.
Anyway, I'm coming up on 31 in a week here. I wake up pretty sore every morning but the stiffness clears up in about an hour. I really dread what it's going to feel like in the morning in another 10 or 20 years. I joke that I'm going to get an adamantium spine someday and be short and dangerous like Wolverine.
