On Thursday, June 2nd, I witnessed the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen: a hit-and-run between a black SUV and one of my closest friends on a bike. I’m writing about this now, while it’s fresh, because many people have heard that this happened and I feel like it’s worthwhile to put it the experience out there.

On that particular evening, we were biking with a group of friends from uptown to Northeast. It was lovely. The group of 10 or so of us biked over the Stone Arch Bridge and through NE to Bauhaus. We drank beer and passed the time while the brewery played Independence Day on their projection screen.

My friend Lindsay and I decided to leave at a reasonable hour. A little after 9pm, we got on our bikes and left Bauhaus intending to cross through NE, on to downtown, and back home to Whittier. Based on my Google maps directions, this necessitated one block on Central Ave NE.

We were feeling so good. It was the Thursday of a long weekend, we had just spent some time with friends we really like, we hadn’t seen each other in awhile, the temperature was pleasant. The evening felt good on the skin. We turned on to Central, and started to signal to turn left onto 14th. We saw an SUV in the distance, but it was so far back they clearly should have seen us as we both had our rear lights on and Central is well lit. We were biking side by side to take the lane before our turn. The SUV sped up.

Before I really knew what was happening, the SUV had hit Lindsay from behind. I’ve replayed this in my head so many times that the memory has become a little faded. What I remember is her being hit, becoming tangled with her bike while the SUV kept going, but the bike was tangled with the tires so both she and her bike were dragged for half a block. The SUV did not slow down and did not swerve at all. She was tumbling like a rag doll on the ground and the SUV almost ran over her with its back tires. Finally, she came to rest in the middle of the intersection at which we were intending to turn.

I can’t tell you what it’s like to witness something like that. It happened so quickly that my brain couldn’t really ascribe meaning onto what I was actually seeing. I don’t know if I cried out. I don’t know if she did. It was this horrific blur of limbs and bike and SUV tires. Once my brain caught up, I thought, “She’s dead.” I thought she was dead. Then I had to decide in the briefest of moments whether to bike up fast behind the SUV for long enough to memorize the license plate, or stop to tend to my friend. Obviously I stopped, but before they sped off into the night, I tried to memorize the plate. I only got the first half, and I was so shocked that I can’t necessarily be sure it was right (674).

When I got to where Lindsay was, I was expecting her to be dead or severely broken. Thankfully she wasn’t. She was moaning, and she was trying to sit up. While I grabbed my phone to call 911, I told her to lay down. She was freaking out and said, “Get me out of the street!” I helped her move to the side of the road while on the phone with 911, I recounted to them the vehicle description and the numbers I’d seen, as well as the direction the vehicle was traveling in. I stayed calm. I sometimes have this recurring dream that I’ll call 911 and no one will answer. That was not the case. The operator told us help was on the way.

By this time, many onlookers had congregated to help. We didn’t have to wait long for help to show up. First it was a Fire Department SUV. Around that same time, our friends who had been at Bauhaus with us showed up, since they were biking the same direction to go to the next brewery. I can’t tell you how incredibly grateful I am that they were there. Up until that point, I’d been in this calm, deal-with-the-situation mode. I was trying to comfort Lindsay. I’d called 911. I was communicating with and organizing the bystanders who wanted to help. One woman put her purse under Lindsay’s head.

As soon as our friends arrived and Lindsay was being tended to by the fire department, I started hugging someone and crying. This fire department person was telling me, “We need your statement, we need you to be strong.” And I yelled at him, “I’ve been strong until you got here, just give me a moment!” I eventually gave my statement to the police, and they said that while there’s not much they can do with a partial license plate and vehicle description, they were going to check traffic cameras nearby to see if they could find more. They said it would be a gross misdemeanor. We haven’t heard if they turned anything up yet.

The rest of the scene passed in a blur. There was a lot of crying between both me and Lindsay. She was seen in the back of an ambulance and chose not to go to the ER. She was covered in road rash. At one point we tried to hug and cry together but she said, “Be careful and try to touch me as little as possible.”

Our friends being there made everything so much better. Some friends took Lindsay home. Others saw to her mangled bike and made sure it was secured. My friend Libby biked back to Whittier with me, and once we got to Lindsay’s apartment, Libby ran to the store to get ice, ice cream, and hydrogen peroxide. I cleaned Lindsay’s abundant road rash, and we tried to work through our feelings. It was a rough night. Incredibly rough.

I was so angry, and I am still so angry, that someone could just run into a human being on a bicycle and drive off. I get even more angry when I think back to that person speeding up. Why did they speed up? Were they drunk? Were they trying to pass us before we merged so they wouldn’t have to slow down? Were they trying to hit one or both of us? I have so many questions and I really, really hope they catch that asshole.

In the morning, I made Lindsay breakfast and we made our way to the ER to get her checked out. She’s covered from head to toe in road rash, and has some intense bruises on the bottoms of her feet and her tailbone. But she’s going to be alright. All told, that’s all that really matters. I set up a funding site to cover bike repair/replacement, medical copays, medications, and whatever else she needs. I feel so grateful that we’ve already reached the $500 goal I set, but if you’re interested in donating, the site is here.

And, for reference, this is what I was wearing when dealing with the entire situation.