This is a column I wrote for The Advertiser about being run over by a car about six weeks ago. Ive since bought a new bike and apart from the need for some serious phyisotherapy on my left ankle, I'm recovering pretty well.



ON Monday this week, about 2.40pm, I was hit by a car. Really, really hard. Crossing Payneham Rd into O.G. Rd I was knocked off my racing bike, apparently by a silver Holden Commodore, perhaps a VN model.At this stage I don't know, because despite hitting me hard enough to knock both feet out of my cycling shoes, the car did not stop.Had the driver done so, he or she would have found me, as a passing driver did, curled in the foetal position, staring at the grill of an SUV a few metres from my head, wondering whether I would ever walk again.My hands were curled up in front of me and I could see the bone of both of my knees, ringed with blood. I couldn't feel much at this stage, which was good.A man - later I found he is a radiographer named David - came and cradled me, warning me not to move my head or my neck. I think he was worried that my skull was fractured. He was definitely worried that I had spinal or neck injuries, as he told me to lie quite still initially.He had good cause to worry. While I am still not able to walk properly, I was able to pick up my bike later in the week, with the help of my girlfriend.The aluminium frame is snapped clean through, at right angles, just below the seat. Well, it would be just below the seat, but that was ripped off as well. The back forks, which are made of carbon, are both snapped, trapping the back wheel in place. The handlebars are twisted about 30 degrees off centre and even one of the cranks - the drive shafts connecting the pedals to the frame - is bent back into the body of the bike.How well I am recovering remains to be seen. The passers-by who helped me, two of whom were nurses, and all of whom treated me wonderfully, quickly ascertained that I could move my fingers and toes, and so were able to safely move me off the road.At that stage I started to worry that I had broken one of my legs and perhaps one of my hands. Now it appears I have not broken anything although my walking problems would point to some sort of deeper damage. The nurses at the scene quickly set me up on the side of the road, and we waited a few short minutes for an ambulance.I told everyone I wasn't in any pain. That raised a bit of a chuckle - as it did when I teased the ambulance officer who later was having trouble finding one of my apparently wonderful veins.On the ride back to the hospital I was feeling pretty chuffed. Being hit by a car is a little like doing a trick on your bike when you're a kid, and realising half way through that you're going to stack it. Just about a thousand times worse.The slow-motion period when you realise that this is going to really, really hurt unless you are very lucky, then the rapid rush into bone-jarring reality.I have a vague sense of my head smashing into a bonnet, and wishing deeply I could rewind the past 10 seconds of my life. And I thought it was the last 10 seconds of my life. Once I'd hit the road, I was waiting for the next car to come and finish the job but, deep down, I thought I was done for anyway.It's easy to remember what I was thinking. Every minute or so for the first day, and every few minutes now, I get vivid flashbacks that make me feel nauseous and a little scared, even though I know it's in the past.And the overwhelming feeling is foolishness. Foolish that I'd killed myself, or someone else had, by a trivial error of judgment.But I didn't kill myself, and who is actually to blame is probably a matter for argument at a later date. What is not in dispute is that someone was cowardly enough to hit me off my bike, hard enough to snap a metal frame cleanly, and did not stop to see if I was OK.Had it been late at night, I could have laid there gently expiring until someone noticed me. As it was, most people were kind enough to come and help. David the radiographer - also a cyclist - was nice enough to take my bike with him for safekeeping. The nurses cleaned the blood off me using two first aid kits donated by other drivers. The vast majority of people will stop and help someone in need. And a small minority will make the judgment that leaving the scene of a life-threatening accident is, in their interests, the best thing to do. That, frankly, lacks the basic decency which makes living in a society possible.I am not particularly angry at whoever was driving that car. I imagine, if they are anything like me, the person is terrified that the next knock on the door will be the boys in blue. It may well be.Most victims of hit-run drivers are not journalists and do not have the privilege of being able to tell their story.I do have that privilege, and would like to thank all of those people who helped me, both on the side of the road, in the ambulance and at the emergency ward at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. And please, don't tell my mum - she's on holiday in Spain and I don't want to ruin it for her.

Writing: Charities

LESS than 20c in the dollar raised by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Research Foundation ends up being used for research funding, documents obtained by The Advertiser suggest.
The Foundation, which runs two major lotteries in South Australia each year, refuses to release its financial information, on the basis it is not a public company, and has no obligation to do so.

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