Clive Heard from Common Platt was innocently riding to work on a cycle path next to Covingham Place roundabout early on 4 July when a fast moving car made a 90 degree turn on the adjacent road, mounted the curb and hit Clive whilst driving over his bike.
He was carried on the bonnet for 20 metres as the car went through a low wall, hitting a tree and catapulting Clive across a garden, leaving him with multiple fractures of his collar bone, cracked ribs and lots of bruising.
The car windscreen was smashed by the impact of the helmet protecting Clive’s head, although the spectacles he was wearing were pushed into his face cutting his eye.
Clive, still hampered by the damaged collar bone, said: “There’s no question that if I wasn’t wearing the helmet, I would have sustained serious head injuries, perhaps worse.
“Luckily I was just about conscious enough to ask somebody who came to my rescue to call Amanda, my wife, to tell her what had happened. The paramedics turned up to stabilise me before taking me and Amanda to Great Western Hospital where I had a CAT scan and an X ray. Amazingly, after patching me up they sent me home as the hospital was ram-packed.”
Amanda said she and Clive had to take a taxi back to Covingham to pick up her car and to try and understand what had happened a few hours earlier. “As a keen cyclist myself, I cannot understate the need to wear a helmet to protect yourself. It might be inconvenient to put on, but you just don’t know what might happen. It’s incredible that the driver was able to turn right angles on the roundabout and hit Clive so hard to crush his bike, knock him down and carry him so far.”
The police are considering whether there is case to press charges on the driver.
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