By Phil Roberts- May 13, 2023
May 13 is the anniversary of the only time I was ever hit by a car—in the crosswalk on Warren Avenue in Cheyenne, east of the State Museum. (One observer told police that I had been tossed “way up in the air” while another was sure I had been completely run over “and crunched like a cardboard box.”)
Truth was I was crossing during Cheyenne’s five-minute rush hour, just after 5, when two cars dutifully stopped for the people in the crosswalk, but a third driver decided to zoom up the right-side parking lane. Three older women from the State Engineers’ office had just got to the curb on the other side. I was a few feet behind them. Before I could say, “watch out,” the car was right there. I leaped over the speeding Torino, catching the aerial on my forehead, but landing on my feet about 100 feet behind the car. (Only other “injury,” besides copious bleeding from my forehead, was to my brand-new hand-tooled Mexican boots I had bought through Eric Alden a week earlier).
I had landed on my feet, but concerned onlookers threw me to the pavement and insisted on calling an ambulance even though I could see Memorial’s emergency room sign–even from the ground from where I’d been thrown down on the pavement.
The Torino driver ran back, terrified that he’d killed me and, I suppose, he could have. I had one of my spare law practice cards in my wallet so I fished one out for him and advised that he seek a lawyer. (He responded in an undignified way by proceeding to vomit in the gutter).
By then, after one wail of the siren, the ambulance arrived. I told the ambulance driver I’d only ride in the front seat and he could just back up the few feet to the hospital. He said “Ok, get in” and off we went the 40-feet to Memorial.
But when they got me there, they insisted I, at least, sit on a gurney. Inside, the doctor, a young woman about my age, sewed me up. I tried to make conversation, feeling a bit awkward under the circumstances. She was doing such a smooth job that I complimented her, saying she would have made “a talented seamstress.” She took the compliment wrong and gave the thread a hard yank. I shut up and let her finish. I walked home, to my place at 24th and Evans across the street from the hospital, feeling a bit foolish that I could be run over on a 1 ½ block walk from my living room. I have tried to avoid crosswalks every May 13 since….Much safer in an airplane on a trans-Atlantic flight bound for Cairo.