Deer And Cyclist Collide in Arizona, No One Wins

Well, that doesn’t include the bike. It took the biggest hit of all and is now smashed. The cyclist, too, will have to go through a 3 to 6-week recovery for a broken bone in his foot, but he knows he could have come out much worse from this.

The incident occurred last week and was captured on the rear-mounted camera of one of Reed Soehnel’s mates. You can also see it at the bottom of the page. Soehnel tells the Arizona Daily Star that he believes the deer was ok, too, though he didn’t exactly stop to check.

In the video, Soehnel is coming down at full speed. The deer jumps on the road, leaving Soehnel no time to slow down or try to avoid the impact. He hits the animal with his front wheel and is hurled through the air, landing flat on his back, while his bike flies away from him on the ground, nearly hitting another cyclist coming from the opposite direction.

To Soehnel’s good luck, that other cyclist was a registered nurse, so he was able to provide him first-aid right on the spot. A car with women coming from a bachelorette party also pulled over, and there was another nurse inside.

The women then took Soehnel to his Airbnb apartment, from where he was able to get himself to the hospital.

“I was fully alert and (had) no concussion symptoms the entire time, so that's why the decision was made to not involve an ambulance, although I was in a decent amount of pain,” Soehnel tells the publication.

When he arrived at the hospital, he was told he had broken his left foot, had cuts and bruises and road rash. His foot will take 3 to 6 weeks to be fully healed, something which he calls a “miracle.”

The bike will have to be replaced.