Summer Flips By: Luke Simmons

It was a hot August day in 2010, and what else would the average 7 year-old boy be doing besides riding their bike at high speeds around the driveway. The sun was beating down, yet I continued to ride in a continuous circular pattern around the paved driveway of our Sparta home. Sweat was rolling down my face as I pushed the limits of my bike that had lost its training wheels not 2 years before, turning so sharply that I felt that I could lean into a turn too far and fall off of my bike at any moment.

Me and my family had just gotten back from a bike ride, and my sister, Ella, was still locked and squirming in her little trailer seat that attached to my Dad's bike so that she could ride with us. I sped around the driveway in the impossible race against myself that I had created in my head. I kept pushing the limits of my measly bike as I felt the wind rushing against my face as I gradually increased my speed. I had circled the driveway for what felt like a thousand times when something happened that I will never be able to explain.

I was going in the same exact pattern that I had been going in when all of the sudden I simply forgot to turn. My brain had failed me seemed to disappear as I raced off the edge of the driveway and down the hill next to my driveway that I had never ridden down before. I completely forgot how to control any part of my bike; my feet lifted off the pedals, I let go of the handlebars, and I screamed at the top of my lungs. I can’t explain why this happened, I just all of the sudden blanked out on everything that I had learned about riding a bike. 

Although it seems comedic, in reality it was very scary to be flying down a long hill towards a stretch of woods filled with an infinite number of immense rocks. I raced down the hill at a speed that made the tiny circles in the driveway seem like they were ridden on a tricycle. My speed was increasing as I rammed straight into a groundhog trap that we had placed near the edge of the woods, and I was catapulted off of my bike. Time seemed to slow almost to a stop as I soared through the air. I saw my Nana running down the yard in fear, my sister staring with wide eyes in her trailer, my own arms flailing as I hit the ground. Yet it wasn’t the ground, it was a giant rock. 

I don’t remember much after that, I only remember the cop that arrived talking to me about his experiences riding his bike in the woods as a kid in order to keep me awake. I remember being placed in a full body stretcher as I was lifted into the ambulance. I remember my parents being having their faces stricken with looks of pure fear as they talked with the people on the ambulance. I remember sitting in a hospital bed for what seemed like hours, and only being moved out of the bright white room once for a full body x-ray.

My parents and I fell asleep multiple times waiting for the results and to finally be released. After what seemed like a lifetime, the doctor came back telling me that my arm was broken, but otherwise I was not injured, despite the doctors’ previous predictions. Sighs of relief escaped my parents’ mouths as they signed the papers that allowed us to leave. Although my parents were stressed beyond relief, I was grinning at the doctor coming in, when I saw she was holding a giant 3D decal that was going to be added to my waterproof cast. Although I was worried about the summer, as soon as I saw that sticker I knew my summer was definitely not ruined, not even close.