Most of this Journal is written for the person behind the wheel: rear-ended on Manchester, tapped at a light on Kirkwood Road, merged into on an I-44 ramp. This entry is for the reader who was not in a car at all. Kirkwood is a walking town by metro standards. People cross Kirkwood Road at Argonne and Jefferson for dinner and the train depot, walk to the farmers market on a Saturday, ride bikes to school, and jog the neighborhood streets before work. Every so often a car and one of those people meet.
When that happens, the person on foot or on the bike tends to say the same thing a driver says after a fender bender: I'm fine, it was slow. It usually was slow. The body still took the hit without a seat, a belt, a headrest or an airbag between it and the car.
What a slow car does to a person outside it
The Journal is not going to describe anyone's specific injury. What it can describe is the general sequence readers report, because it explains why the soreness shows up in odd places.
- The first contact is usually low: a bumper or a fender against the shin, the knee, or the hip.
- The second contact is the ground or the hood. Hands go out, so wrists and elbows take it. A shoulder or a hip lands.
- The head may strike the hood, the pavement, or nothing at all. On a bike, the helmet often takes that contact instead.
- The neck goes along for the ride, snapped sideways or back with no support at all.
Readers describe waking up the next day sore in three or four places at once, often worse than they expected after "barely getting bumped." That delay is the same one the Journal covers in three days later: soft tissue hurts at the rate of inflammation, not at the rate of the impact.
The head comes first
A person hit outside a car is more likely than a belted driver to strike their head on something hard. That makes the emergency line matter even more. Chest pain, a sudden severe headache, weakness or numbness on one side, trouble speaking, a loss of bowel or bladder control, or a head injury with vomiting or worsening confusion is an emergency room trip right now, not a call to a clinic. So is anyone who lost consciousness, even briefly, and so is a rider whose helmet cracked and who seems off.
A cracked helmet is worth keeping and photographing. It shows where the head met the ground, which is useful to whoever examines the rider. Helmet makers generally say a helmet that has been through a crash should be replaced, even if it looks fine.
A head that feels only "a little off" is covered in the Journal's Friday night heads entry. Fog, a headache behind the eyes, and irritation at bright light after a hit are worth naming on the phone. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke describes mild traumatic brain injury in plain language, including symptoms that show up after the day of the hit.
It still counts as a crash
People hit on foot or on a bike sometimes assume an injury clinic's crash lane is only for drivers and passengers. Missouri Injury Clinic publishes its auto injury lane as diagnosis and a treatment plan after a crash, and its TBI and concussion rehab lane separately. A car hitting a person is a crash. When you call, say it plainly: "I was hit by a car while I was walking," or "I was on my bike." Let the office tell you whether they are the right place, and tell them if your head was involved.
The note to write tonight
A walker or a rider has fewer natural records than a driver. There is no dented bumper of your own to photograph. Make a short note instead, while it is fresh:
- Where it happened, as exactly as you can: which corner, which crosswalk, which direction you were headed.
- Which part of the car met which part of you.
- What you landed on, and with what: hands, hip, shoulder, head.
- Whether you blacked out, felt dazed, or remember the whole thing.
- Every place that hurts tonight, and every new place that hurts tomorrow.
Photograph scrapes and bruises in daylight over the first several days. Bruises often darken and spread after the first day, and a dated photo shows that better than a description. The Journal's dated record entry covers why those dates matter.
Where to go from downtown
For readers in Kirkwood, Glendale, Webster Groves, and Des Peres, the nearest Missouri Injury Clinic office is Tesson Ferry, a straight run south on Lindbergh, at 11144 Tesson Ferry Road, Suite 200. It is open Monday through Thursday 9am to 6pm and Friday 9am to 12pm, and closed from 12 to 2 every day. The phone is (314) 530-5480. If you are not up to driving after being hit, let someone else drive you; a person who was just knocked to the pavement is not the right person to be handling Lindbergh traffic.