Day 55 - An Extremely Lucky Crash/Fall (July 26th, 2024)

City To City: Hazard - Wheelwright

Miles: 54

Miles Total: 3,711

Flats: 13

Video: https://youtu.be/wWtHqd3loKA?si=1T5IF97iUowWxEL3

Henry's Front Wheel

Justin Bending The Wheel

Henry After His Stitches

    When we woke up, thankfully, nothing was stolen.  We ate cold pizza and dessert for breakfast plus the fruit we had bought for breakfast.  Then we mounted our bikes and hit the road.  While on the road, I noticed Matt's shirt hanging off the back of his bike but didn't say anything.  I thought, "Well, that's an interesting way to dry his shirt."

So, we continued, and a little later, I noticed his shirt was gone further down the road!  It had fallen off, but luckily, Matt only returned half a mile and found it.  Then we had our Oreo cupcakes from the people who had given us food.  Right as we were leaving, my dad got a flat.  So, with everyone's help, we changed it quickly, and within five minutes, we were riding again.

    A truck passed us on the road, speeding as he went.  As he passed, he had the back of the truck laid down, and a plastic gas tank fell out.  We hollered at him to stop, but he zoomed by us.  So Mark picked it up and carried it, hoping to see the truck again.  But Mark has been holding it for three miles, and when he finally gets tired of carrying it, he says that the next vicious dog that comes his way is going to chuck it at the dog. But he never got the chance because Henry kept scaring them off.  

We were about to turn onto a different road. Mark was still carrying the tank, and a gas station was on the corner, so Mark decided to set the gas tank down in case the truck came by. I looked over my shoulder and thought I saw the truck that had lost the tank! I told Mark, and Mark went up to the truck, and sure enough, it was the same truck!

    We had a few big, steep hills to climb for the day.  They were all steep, twisty, and sometimes curved 270 degrees.

Along the way, we stopped at a very small town, where ate lunch and had ice cream for a dollar fifty per scoop.  There we met an interesting man named Curtis Hall.

Curtis is a passionate man with a big booming voice.  He was a coal mine inspector and a minister for 43 years but is now retired.  Now he employs a teenage boy who doesn't have good prospects of having a good career.  Curtis told us stories of his childhood and mischief he and his brothers got into and the consequences that came with it.  Curtis told us one time that his brother played a prank and so Curtis's father took all his sons into a room and whipped all of them, and Curtis had yelled, "What was that for? I didn't do nothing wrong!"  Their dad had replied that he had done it so all the boys would know not to do it again.  Curtis also told about the suspense of waiting in the room while he and his brother had waited for their dad to come into the room.  They had hated the anxiety of it, so one time Curtis and his brothers took turns disciplining each other, and on the way out they ran into their father.  Their dad had asked them where they thought they were going, and they replied, "Oh, we already took care of it.  There's no need to trouble yourself."  Their dad wasn't fooled.  

Then Curtis went into the small restaurant, and as the door closed behind him, we could still hear his loud booming voice, hollering a greeting to the employees inside.  

    When we got up our fourth hill, Henry and Mark were ahead, and Henry was ahead of Mark.  We were going down a steep, twisty road.  We didn't see Henry in front of Mark when we got to the bottom.  About two miles after two miles, my dad gets a call from Henry.  Henry was still halfway down the hill.  He had gone off a cliff twenty feet down, then slid another ten more feet before stopping.  Heny was in complete shock. When he heard one of us passing by, he didn't think to call.  So, Henry dragged his bike up an almost vertical grade.  Then, he went back down to grab his panniers.  Luckily, Henry didn't hit his head, but he had split his lip open and scraped up his face and his limbs.  Once we heard, my dad called Matt and Mark, who jumped in and asked how they could help.  My dad and I biked back up the hill halfway, and there we saw Henry sitting there, all bloodied up.  Then we see Henry's front wheel, and it bent badly.  We thought being back straight enough to ride down the hill was impossible. 

    So my dad calls all the nearby bike shops, and none have a new wheel.  As my dad calls, a guy in a car is passing by; he goes around the curve and disappears. Then we see the same car backing up, and the man in the car takes one look at Henry and asks how he can help.  We asked about a bike shop for a wheel, and the man, also named Justin, looked at the wheel and said, "I think we can bend that wheel straight enough, at least enough to ride."

    So Justin rolls up his sleeves and reveals massive forearms full of muscles. Justin tries getting the wheel off, but he can't get the through axle out because it is so bent. But that doesn't stop him, so he bends the wheel enough to get the axle out, then bends it the rest of the way. And he bends it with his bare hands!

While all this is happening, Mark and Matt are flagging down a person with a truck so we can get Henry's bike down.  Joe, the driver, flies up the hill, and Mark jumps out and rushes to Henry to see if he's okay.  Mark then says, "I could see you going around the curves, and then one curve, I just didn't.  Then I thought that 'Oh, Henry must've gone off the edge.'" Justin then inspects Henry's face and says Henry needs to go to the hospital for stitches. My dad then asked if it was necessary, and Justin, without a beat, pushed for stitches.  Joe turns his truck around and turns off his engine.  Justin tells us where he lives and leaves with us, calling thank you after him.  We loaded Henry's bike and panniers in the truck, and since Joe didn't have enough gas in the tank, he put the vehicle in neutral and coasted until he got to the bottom of the hill.  Mark told him to go slow because Mark was in the back, and Terry, Joe's co-worker, said he would ensure it happened.  When Mark was in the middle of the cab, Mark, who's rarely afraid, in fear, pushed against the ceiling to brace himself from moving too much because Joe was speeding twenty over the limit on curvy roads.  There, he started his truck and drove to a convenience store.  My dad and I followed shortly.  Everyone knew what had happened.  So, when I arrived, Henry was surrounded by Joe's co-workers.

    Terry and a few other guys said that Henry was so lucky to be pretty much unscathed as he was.  Terry said that people die in cars going down that giant hill, and that hill was one of the worst in the area.

    Misty, Joe's wife, came down with their daughter and offered to take Henry and my dad ten miles away to a hospital. But since Misty's car wasn't working, Joe had to jump-start it.  Mark commented to Misty about Joe's driving, and she laughed. Then Mark asked if he drove like that when Misty was in the car. Misty laughed again and said that he didn't.  Once Misty's car was started, Henry and my dad went off.  Mark and Matt stayed with me.  All the while, Matt was finding a place for us to stay and grocery stores to get groceries.  Out of all of us, Matt was the only one thinking about what to do afterward.  Everyone else was got up in the present situation.  Matt and Mark left to help Joe, Terry, and their co-workers put the trail back on the truck.  The company that Joe and Terry worked for was a tree removal company, and when Mark asked them for help, they took the trailer off to go up the hill.  So, when they returned to work, they needed help leaving the trailer on the hitch again since tree branches were on it.  But we were all too happy to help!

    While Henry and my dad were at the hospital, a couple entered.  The husband was clearly on drugs and alcohol.  He was screaming and abusing his wife, and halfway through finishing Henry's stitches, all the doctors and nurses rushed over to sedate the man, before they finished stitching Henry.  And Henry and my dad just stayed put, watching from afar.  Once the man had been knocked out, the sheriff stood over the man, watching him, waiting to keep the man under control once he woke up.  After the man had been knocked out, the doctor returned and finished the stitches.

    Matt and Mark were able to fix Henry's wheel some more, but Matt left to meet a guy at the church where we would stay. Once Joe finished his work, we piled Henry's and my dad's bikes and panniers in Joe's truck. Joe then left for the church a mile down the road, and Mark and I biked.

    We stopped at a grocery store, and Mark carried everything since I had no packs. I tried keeping just enough to get by, but Mark insisted he could take it all.

We got to the church, ate Doritos, and showered while waiting for Henry to return. That night, we ate dinner at 9 p.m., then had cookies that Matt baked at 10 p.m., and went to bed at 10:30 p.m., all exhausted physically and emotionally.

We are so thankful that Matt and Mark stayed with us. Without them, we wouldn't have thought about what happened after and wouldn't have been able to be with Henry while Mark flagged down a truck. They supported us and discerned what to do because Henry, my dad, and I were in shock, and Matt and Mark were level-headed and helped us tremendously.  

So, thank you, Matt and Mark!  We are so blessed and grateful that you were there alongside us.