PHILADELPHIA, PA.: Drummer Cheshire Agusta of the veteran Philadelphia rock trio Stinking Lizaveta is recovering from surgery after being struck down by a hit-and-run driver while riding her bicycle in West Philadelphia.

The accident partially crushed the top of Agusta’s left shinbone, which had to be reconstructed with cadaver bone chips and titanium plates. Doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) say Agusta now faces a painful rehab but should be ready to tour in September in support of Stinking Lizaveta’s latest record, “Seventh Direction,” to be released in the U.S. on Philadelphia’s Translation Loss Records, and in Europe on Germany’s Exile on Mainstream Records.

“My summer plans have changed dramatically, but my fall plans are still the same,” said Agusta. “We’re really proud of this record. There’s eighteen years of work behind it.

“The worst thing that could have happened is that I could have died,” Agusta said, “but the next worst thing would be if I couldn’t get out and play this music.”

Doctors said Agusta’s injury, known as a “tibial plateau fracture,” is common in “high energy” impact events like car crashes or skiing accidents. “Imagine swinging a door too hard, and the handle crushing two centimeters into drywall,” explained Dr. John Esterhai of HUP’s Perelman School of Medicine, who performed the three-hour surgery. “That’s essentially what we’re talking about here. The top of her shin bone is the drywall.”

Agusta was struck on Friday June 1st at 60th and Chestnut Streets while riding to her gym for a morning workout. After waiting at a traffic light, Agusta had just started pedaling north on 60th Street when a car on her left took a right turn across her path – a maneuver known among cyclists as the “right hook.” Agusta and her bike ended up trapped beneath the car. As Agusta recalls it, the driver stopped briefly, backed up, paused again briefly and then drove off with the bike still underneath his car, leaving Agusta sitting in shock on the pavement.

“The bike stuck under his car all the way to the other side of Chestnut Street, and then fell off, completely mangled,” Agusta said. “There was a moment while I was still under his car where I thought, ‘This is it.’ It ended up being bad, but it could have been really, really bad.”

Thanks to helpful bystanders who got the car’s license plate number, police soon located the driver, an 18-year-old man who told police that Agusta was in his “blind spot” and that he did not know anything was wrong. In part because of his clean driving and criminal record, police declined to charge him. Both Agusta and the driver were insured.

“He’s 18 and he probably just panicked,” said Agusta, who says that just before the accident, she was positioned near the front of the driver’s car where she should have been easily visible. “I hope he learns his lesson. He could have ruined my life, and his own.” According to the Bicycle Coalition of Philadelphia (BCP), the city logs about 700 car-bicycle crashes annually, about 20 percent of which are hit-and-runs. BCP research director John Boyle says that drivers who hit cyclists in Philadelphia are rarely charged unless they’re under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Doctors say that while Agusta’s bone should be fully healed within 6-8 weeks, the joint will remain weak, and she’ll be able to perform but not lift heavy objects. “Cheshire’s surgery went very well, and she should have a good recovery,” said Dr. Esterhai. She faces a total of six months of rehab. Possible long-term complications include chronic stiffness and early-onset arthritis in the joint.

Agusta vows to “kick that rehab’s bleeping ass” and get back behind the drum kit, where she’s known for a powerful and exuberant but disciplined style that leaves her soaked in sweat at the end of every show.

Stinking Lizaveta, recently described by Philebrity.com as a “Philly punk rock institution if ever there was one,” is an instrumental trio whose intricate, weighty compositions have been dubbed “doom jazz.” The band features brothers Yanni and Alexi Papadopoulos on guitar and upright electric bass respectively. Formed in West Philadelphia in 1994 and named after a character in Dostoyevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov,” the band has shared bills and tours in Europe and America with such rock and metal stalwarts as Clutch, Mastodon, Corrosion of Conformity, The Sword and many more.

The band has scheduled a five-week European tour starting in September to support “Seventh Direction,” recorded at Chicago’s Engine Music Studios with producer Sanford Parker. The record features original compositions from all three band members.

Agusta is the second member of Stinking Lizaveta to be seriously injured in a West Philadelphia traffic accident. Alexi Papadopoulos, a co-owner of the popular Satellite Café on Baltimore Avenue, was struck by a car on his motor scooter two years ago, suffering multiple fractures and internal injuries. “The consensus among friends is that I’m next,” said his brother Yanni, but the guitarist had no comment on any steps he might take to avoid his bandmates’ fate.