The amazing story of Miriam:
Erez Winshtet (my Frankfurt training partner) and I went on a biking workout on Tuesday at 7:00am, at the same track of the scheduled Saturday bike. We planned on 5 hours bike + one hour running.
We left Latrun, biked to Nesher (upside down triangle). Nachshoon- Shimshon- Tzuba- Nes Harim- Zur Hadasa, and unfortunately, 2 hours to the finish line, just when we got to the fun part- speeding up at the wide open, our bike ride got cut short…
At the end of Tzur Hadasa there is a T junction consists of a right turn to Beit Shemesh and a straight lane, which we took. That is a high speed biking segment since it comes right after a downhill road, but when I got a sight of the T junction, I rose up for a “base” and held the breaks. I saw a vehicle coming towards the junction, blinking right to Beit Shemesh direction. The vehicle got into the junction and came to a full stop, even though there was no stop sign. I lifted my hand up signing I was about to cross the junction and I really did have the preemptive right. I sat back down on my bike seat to speed up, and just few meters before we entered the junction, the vehicle’s driver decided to speed up. We collided head on at an angle- I hit my head on the engine cover and my body rolled over the front windshield. I fell over the ground from the other side of the car and by bike literally snapped in little pieces and landed 10 meters away from the car…
Erez, my training partner was behind me and managed to stop in time. He still hit the back of the car, but not as hard, and got some no long term mark contusions, and a broken wrist.
I was fully conscious when I hit the car, I completely understood I was about to hit it, and wasn’t going to make it out alive. I remember that moment I told myself: “ok, this is where it ends for me”.
I closed my eyes, contracted all of my muscles and hit the car at 60kph. I took the hit and waited to be thrown on the ground, but it didn’t come… I don’t know why. Maybe I lost conscious for that very second , or maybe I had some kind of brain concussion, I really don’t know, all I remember is realizing all of a sudden I’m alive and laying on the ground.
Erez was running to me and turned me over, because I was laying on my face. He took my helmet and glasses off and checked if I was awake. There was a kid inside the vehicle and he was screaming and crying. He was the driver’s son. Poor kid… that is such a trauma for a kid. I started to feel my hurting body and I had hard time speaking. I felt dizzy and very weak.
The ambulance got there in less than 10 minutes. They asked me bunch of questions to see if I was conscious and orientated. In the mean time they gave me some morphine IV. In less than 2 minutes I was all drugged up and the pain turned into a pleasant feeling. When I got to the trauma room I was loaded with morphine, it’s all a blurred from there, but I knew I was in good hands.
They sent me to bunch of X-ray exams to make sure they identified all of my injuries, and they ended up finding 3 broken bones-one in my left Tibia, 3 in my right hand Humerus , and one more in my sternum, the chest bone. If you ask me, I got away with it! I feel like I got my life back as a present J
After 2 surgeries in my hand and leg, inserting some screws and a 1 week hospitalization in Hadasa Ein Karem, im at home doing rehabilitization, from a wheel chair, on top of doing lots of hydrotherapy. This Tuesday is 4 weeks post my accident, and 2 weeks overall of intense rehabilitation- the progress has been amazing.
Rehabilitation time:
Over the past 2 weeks I’ve showed up twice a week for physiotherapy with David Reznik. We work for an hour or two. In addition I have a physiotherapist showing up at my house 3 times a week from my insurance.
I take swimming lessons 4-5 times a week. One of them is one on one with Ori Sela. I do different drills with my body, and mainly I swim one arm freestyle in west technique J
My schedule is slowly getting filled with workouts, just like how I’m used to and love. It’s really hard to make it to workouts since I’m on a wheelchair, which is very limiting, in a very annoying way. Lucky me, I’m surrounded with a supportive network of family and friends. I don’t know how I would have survived this harsh reality if it wasn’t for Tom, my amazing boyfriend, who reminds me every time how lucky I’m.
Swimming West changed my life and after only 2 months I got my life back and started running , biking, swimming, my job and my smile 🙂
