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The Rice Thresher
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Gary Morris physics and astronomy instructor. Clad in purple and green, the Jones College students and bikers jogged triumphantly around the track, pumping their fists in the air, celebrating their victory in the 2001 men's Beer-Bike race. As they rounded turn one, they passed a fellow biker from Wiess College, strapped to a gurney and in a neck brace. I stood about 10 feet away from the scene, looking, listening and absorbing my first Beer-Bike experience. But this strange juxtaposition of pain and elation left me feeling uneasy. It had been "a great day for racing," as auto-racing legend Jackie Stewart would have described it, and the men's race got off to a very competitive start. Hanszen College fell out of contention when one of their riders took a spill in turn one. He suffered scrapes, but seemed otherwise okay. Toward the end of the race, however, disaster was about to strike, and everyone knew it. As the men raced toward turn one, Jones had a huge lead, the Jones biker pumping his fist to the crowd as he passed. The second-place biker from Will Rice College was riding next to, but a lap ahead of, a tight race for fourth between the bikers from Wiess and Baker Colleges. The three bikers came riding toward the turn, one right next to the other. I could see that there was no way there'd be enough friction between rubber and road for these guys to successfully complete the turn without a crash. Someone was about to slam into the steel fence I'd been standing next to all day: It was the Wiess biker. Only much later would I learn that this biker was a student in my pre-med physics class. Quickly, another of the students from my class who works for Rice Emergency Medical Services hopped the fence to administer aid. President Malcolm Gillis also quickly came over to check on the situation and remove the broken pieces of the bike from the track. And along with Gillis and several other students and alumni, I worked to open the green steel fence, which, after several tries, finally parted. I had no idea what was happening in the race after this point. I didn't care. For those of us near the scene of this collision, our concern was for the fallen rider. The EMS students and staff strapped the fallen rider to a gurney, immobilized his neck in a brace and cleaned his wounds. It took about 10-15 minutes for the Houston Fire Department to arrive and another five minutes for the ambulance. Had this been an auto race, the yellow flag would certainly have come out for this accident. But Beer-Bike went on, the race ended, the judges consulted and the results were tallied and announced. Jones began its celebratory lap. If the announcement of the results had occurred but five minutes later, the injured Wiess biker would have been evacuated from the scene before the Jones victory lap. Everyone could have cheered for him as he was carted off, then cheered for the well-deserving winners from Jones. Instead, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat played simultaneously in front of me at the corner of turn one: the triumphant students from Jones and the fallen biker from Wiess. Perhaps in the face of something horrific, we all hope and assure ourselves that everything will be all right, that things really aren't as bad as they might at first appear. We carry on with our lives as if nothing had happened. How many auto accidents have each of us passed on the road, rubbernecking, but comforting ourselves with the thought that surely everyone must be okay? On Saturday afternoon, how many of us actually knew the extent of the fallen biker's injuries? Thankfully, he was not seriously injured and will be OK. But did we really know that then? And if he had been seriously injured, how would knowing that have changed the way the race ended and the cheering began? Gary Morris is a physics and astronomy instructor.
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