Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Bicycle troubles

My bike now looks like this:

My son Colton has decided that my bike is better than his...purple and kid seat on the back and all! It is very common for bikes to be on the road in Europe because it is how a lot of people travel. In fact, bikes must be ridden on the road and are considered a vehicle if you are 8 or older. There are many bike trails where bikes can also be ridden and there happens to be one that begins at the end of our street. You will rarely see an empty bike rack...usually full.

Lauren and Sarah had ridden their bike over to the park that is one street away from our house. Sarah came home and said that Colton needed me and his knees were bleeding. Now...Colton tends to be a little on the dramatic side so I wasn't overly worried at this point. I asked her what had happened and she said she didn't know. She said he was ok so I told her to tell him to come home. She comes back a few minutes later and gets our NEW box of band-aids and was taking them to Colton. She then tells me this in a very calm voice: "The ambulance is on its way." WHAT????

I go outside and I hear the European siren getting closer and closer...Nee, nee, Nee, nee

I then took off up to where he was and by the time I got there he was already in the ambulance. What my 7 year old daughter had left out was that he was hit by a motor scooter (also VERY common) while he was making a turn towards the park!!

They checked him out and then took him to the local Krankenhaus. Germans are very thorough and extremely quick which is why I like to take the kids to the German doctors instead of the US clinic....never thought I would say that!

I loaded up all of the kids and called my friend Andrea to see if I could drop them off while I went to the hospital because the thought controlling 4 kids while we were waiting didn't sound very good...so I dropped them off and was off (I owe her). It took me about 15 minutes to find out where he was located in the hospital because of the language barrier.

The verdict....Colton is ok. They cleaned up his wounds which were on both knees, elbows, and hip bone. Lots of road rash going on. I'm thankful that he only had minor injuries and that it was not a car. I think he learned a valuable lesson!

More on the interesting Polizei visit tomorrow!!

4 comments:

Sharon said...

Wow! I'm glad he's o.k.!

Pam said...

OMG what a stressful time that must have been! So glad he is okay -- but your poor bike!!!

Andrea said...

Whew! That bike did take a beating. You don't owe me at all. No worries. Drama happens.

Tiffany said...

Holy Moly! What are kids thinking... scaring us like that?!! Don't they know our little hearts can't take it!
Glad he is alright! Sorry about the bike.