Hit by a Bus, the Question is “What Would Chase Outlaw Do?”

In late April in New York City, I was hit by a bus.

I’m on a Citibike, properly using an East Village bike lane. A bus tearing past clips my left handlebar and spins me out. 

I am shaken by the wreck. After a minute I sit up and rise to my feet like a phoenix. Left leg and arm are hurting. But I am moving. Apparently, nothing broken. 

A homeless man shuffles up meekly offering something in his hand. 

“Waddaya know, those earbuds knocked right outta my head!” I say, thanking him for his kindness. 

The bus had stopped up the avenue.  The heavyset driver jogs back. All city bus drivers should look like Ralph Kramden. He huffs and puffs, “We should call an ambulance.”

When on the ground, I watched the bus’s rear wheel zoom a few inches from my face. I’m very lucky not to be roadkill like so many rats during Covid when the restaurants shut down, and the city’s most prevalent wildlife took to the streets searching for dinner only to meet a dark fate. 

Once, a mile and a half uptown at Madison Square Garden, the bull rider Pistol Robinson was caught underneath a stomping bull. Both his legs were broken. The ambulance heading to the hospital hit just about every pothole in New York, Pistol said. He had to grit out the ride like busted-up Burt Reynolds going over the rapids in “Deliverance.”

Lights and sirens on a gurney bouncing over potholes? Ugh. My left side is throbbing, but I’m ambulant.

If you’re ambulant, what’s the need for an ambulance? 

Since I promote bull riders for a living, I’m thinking, “What would Chase Outlaw do?”