SOS Ping

Although there are a lot of details that I need to hammer out here in Nicaragua, I have a lot of people reaching out to me curious about my SOS status that pinged last night, so I will go ahead and write up what happened before I get going on the rest of my plans.

Monday morning I was feeling well rested and ready to leave El Salvador.  I would be crossing two borders (Honduras and Nicaragua), so I wanted to get an early start.  I headed out seeing the Eastern half of El Salvador.  I served a full time mission for my church in the Western half of El Salvador, so seeing the East was a somewhat new and exciting experience for me.  I rode through the traffic and eventually made it to the Honduras border.   You first cross a station for El Salvador, and once they clear you, you take 3 copies and your original vehicle trip permit with you as you enter Honduras. 

Honduras was horrible.  The roads have tens of thousands of potholes and everyone works hard to avoid them.  The traffic is unreliable, and you really have to stay alert.  It didn't take too long to cross Honduras (3 hours maybe), and then it was onto Nicaragua.

The Nicaraguan border is not especially difficult to cross, but my gloves were stolen off of the back of my bike (my fault for leaving them there).  I had planned on crossing with enough sunlight to make it to Leon.  As I started doing my paperwork, the office employees kept sending me in circles, and it turned out that it was all caused by a $2 receipt that someone had forgotten to print out.  Because of this, I was now about an hour behind schedule, and the sun was setting.  There is NOTHING near the border, so I figured that I would ride until it was about dark, and I would stop and camp. 

As I rode, the sunset was beautiful, but it also made me very very nervous.  I knew that it would soon be too dark to set up camp.  I rode a little ways further, when it happened, out of nowhere, there was a bicyclist in the middle of the freeway. I was just coming out of a curve, and there he was, dead center, barely moving, and I hit him, HARD. 

We both went flying and it all happened in an instant.  My body hit the ground and I felt the asphalt rumbling under my jacket and riding gear.  I did not feel any real pain as I came to a stop, except for the burn from the asphalt on my knuckles where my gloves should have been.  I didn't even notice the burn though as my first thought was the cyclist.  Where was he? Was he dead? I flipped the switch on my Garmin Inreach and jammed on the SOS button while I ran to the side of the road the cyclist had been on.  20 or 30 people were gathered around what I thought was a man dying in a ditch on the side of the road.   I ran to him to see his condition.  The ruby red laceration on the back of his head was visible from 40 feet away, it looked really bad, but he was conscious and moving.  As I got closer, the people around saw that I was the other victim and quickly layed me on the ground.  I was in shock, but ok, and wanted to help, but no one would let me near him.  I communicated with the Garmin dispatch service and an ambulance was there for the man within about 15 minutes or so (which is incredible response time given the area that we were at).  They quickly checked and loaded him, not bracing his neck or strapping him down. 

After the man had left, we waited another 30 minutes or so before the police arrived.  It was very dark now and with nothing else I could do, I laid on the side of the road and tried to get my breath.  Once I was out of the initial shock, I contacted the US Embassy (via the inreach) as well as a local church leader that is also a mormon, but living here in Nicaragua.  The man was a complete stranger to me, but offered to help me find a place to stay for the night once I finished with the police.

The police loaded the bike in their truck and took me to the station.  They told me that I wasnt being arrested, but if the man died, it was mandatory that they arrest me and that I stand trial regardless of who was at fault.  They also said that even though I wasnt under arrest,  they would hold me until they knew the cyclists condition.  Just as they were bringing out an extremely soiled sleeping bad for me to spend the night on, the Stake President (local church leader) appeared at the station door.  He was able to convince them to write up a report that night and to let him take me to a hotel using his own name a collateral for me.  I was so shaken up and nervous about the accident and the legal system, that this man's timing in saving me from a night in the jail and potentially more, was a true miracle.

This morning we had to be at the police station at 7am, so the Stake President picked me up after only 3 or 4 hours of sleep to see what the police wanted me to do today.  Upon arrival, we found out that they had left to the hospital to see the man, so we ended up waiting around 3 hours until they returned.

When they got back they said the man had not died, did not have any broken bones, had some stitches, but was in stable condition.  They told me it would probably end up going to trial, and that I would more than likely win in the trial, but that if I wanted to avoid all of that, I should just go see the man in the hospital, and offer him a settlement. 

I spoke to him and made sure there were no hard feelings between us.  He was well aware that he did not belong in the middle of the freeway on a bicycle at dusk with no reflectors, and I certainly could have been more aware of my surroundings.  We decided on a settlement number and had a lawyer put the documents together saying that neither party would pursue damages with the settlement.

Once I was done with the man at the hospital and saw that aside from the stitches, he really would be ok, I headed back to the police station to turn everything in.  They looked through it all then had me meet with the main officer there at the station (sorry I forget his title).  The man told me that they werent going to ticket me because in reality it was not my fault, and told me to just be really careful.  With that, I was handed the key to my bike along with my passport and other identification. 

The moment my passport was in my hand, I felt like I had truly regained my freedom.

Now that the bike is down, I am looking for a way to ship it home, and get myself on the quickest flight out of here.  I am very disappointed that I wont realized my lifelong dream (yet), but this isn't enough to stop me from hopefully going again in the future.  Accidents happen and it was a huge miracle that no one was seriously injured. 

I am grateful to everyone and their support.  I am sorry I can't go on, but I will be back!