Oops...

I had my first (and hopefully last) accident in France on Thursday.  I had just left work and was walking to the Metro, just about 3 blocks from where the family lives, when I was hit by one of those motorized scooter things they have all over Europe.  I crossed a street with the green walk signal (though a little in front of the crosswalk I confess) when the guy on the scooter made a right hand turn without looking.  There was a van parked on the corner and I think he might not have seen me stepping out from next to it.

He hit me on my left side and I was thrown several feet, he skidded in the opposite direction.  Honestly I can't quite figure out most of the details of where he hit me and how I landed because people were in the street so quickly to pick me up (it was immediately in front of a restaurant with outdoor seating) that I wasn't on the road for more than a few seconds. 

I was very lucky - it wasn't serious at all.  I suppose he probably wasn't going very fast.  The only injuries I could immediately recognize were that my foot hurt and one of my toes was bleeding a lot and weirdly, my left ear hurt a lot.  There was a pharmacy on the opposite corner from the restaurant and before I knew it someone ran over with a bandage for my toe, while a couple other people offered to buy me beers.

The guy who took me out of the street seemed to possibly be a doctor as he immediately checked for a concussion and kept taking my pulse and feeling the bones in my foot and ankle.  He was very nice.  Soon the guy who hit me popped up beside me and he was very nice too, actually.

The doctor guy called the pompiers (technically firemen but they also act as sort of first responders to various emergencies) and they had me sit in the ambulance for a while, taking my blood pressure, asking questions about my head, neck, and back.  They told me I had black gunk all over the left side of my face, and indeed I did, but there was absolutely no pain and I don't think my head ever hit the ground hard at all.  The only strange thing was that my left ear was absolutely killing me.  I still can't for the life of me figure out how my ear got hurt without banging my head as well.  When I got home I discovered the same black gunk (seemingly residue from the pavement, though it wiped off easily and was not oily) inside the upper folds of my ear.  Bizarre.

They disinfected my scraped toes (which bled consistently for about 5 hours afterwards) and determined that nothing serious was wrong.  They asked if I wanted to go to the hospital just to make sure and I declined - I really just wanted to go home and was disappointed that the food place I wanted to get dinner from, the reason I was crossing that street in the first place, had closed while I was in the ambulance.  The police came as well and took a report.  To my dismay, when I left I realized that my left headphone no longer worked, although there isn't any outward sign of damage. 

The bruises started appearing the next day and I was much more sore, giving me a better idea of where I was hit and how I probably landed.  The most apparent bruising, besides on my foot, is around my left hip - I think this is probably where the scooter hit.

There is also considerable bruising on my left shoulder and collarbone - I imagine I fell on it - but I couldn't get a picture where it didn't look like shadows.  My neck and upper back were quite sore for two days but I'm pleasantly surprised this morning that they're much better.

My ear, especially the upper part, still hurts quite a bit when I touch it.  There has been some dried blood behind it, in the crease where the ear meets my head, so I'm thinking maybe it somehow got folded in the wrong direction and squished?  Considering there is no pain or bruising anywhere else on my head this is the only thing I can think of.

So despite this very long detailing of everything, it wasn't a very serious accident - it could have been far worse.  My poor headphones were the real victims; I need to get a new pair.  And my biggest concern that night was that I had no groceries and no dinner because I ended up being done with the pompiers and police after everything closed!