After AbuDhabi I was a little bit down because of my bad bike but Jo and I did a big reflection on our winter training and my doubts saddled down a bit. Then right when we want to get back into the normal training the weather became to be perfect and the temperatures climbed over 10°C! Although we still have sometimes minus degrees during the night we’re back on the bike and training was really going well. Then Jo caught a really bad cold 1 week ago and suddenly I had 3 sessions where my whole body broke completely down. After 1 hour of easy riding I weren’t able to move my legs up on the bike but I couldn’t explained it. The next sessions were great again and 2 days later in the pool I were not able to get my arms around. There I was considering what this could be and after a while I realized that I ate both times shrimps beforehand and maybe I had an allergic reaction. But the next day it was getting worse and the symptoms were the same as in Jo’s case: the cold had me fully:-( so I slowed down a bit. The boys Jo, Andrej Vistica from Croatia and Yves Moubayed were at home with me and we had coffee. Everybody was joking about everything, esp. about me because I sat there and was moaning that I can’t do the 30/30/30 with them on the bike. So they left for the bike and I was alone at home. I thought they’ll be back in 2 hours and till then I’ve some time do arrange some things and to prepare dinner. I was sitting in the kitchen with an ice bag on my knee (it was hurting, too) and suddenly my phone rang: Yves name was on it! I only thought: hopefully they have just wishes for dinner… but then Andrej was speaking and my heart sank down: “Diana, you’ve to come and pick up the bikes!”
“What? What’s going on there?”
“Jo and Yves were taking to hospital…”
Andrej couldn’t tell me much more and my thoughts were doing somersaults. I jumped up, crabbed my phone and run down. Then I realized I’ve no key – run back again. Then maybe I should take the passports with me. So I run back into the flat again. The 28mins drive to the accident place last an eternity… when I arrived there were still the police, Andrej and a few people – Jo and Yves were brought to hospital. Nobody could tell me anything about their status – even the police had no information, they weren’t even sure in which hospital they were brought. Then they said they were brought in 2 different ones and those were in completely different directions. After a while I asked if someone called Yves’ wife – no chance they haven’t even had the name of Yves – and he was wearing a “road ID wrist band”! I took Yves cell phone and were looking for her name but couldn’t find it. Then I had a look on the last calls and there was the name of his father-in-law and so I called him. Luckily his daughter was sitting next to him…
Andrej and I packed the bikes and drove to the hospital where Jo was. He is in the ambulance and there was a big sign “No passing”. 1st I stopped with Andrej but then I ignored it. Fortunately I found a nurse and she calmed us down and a few mins later Jo was brought in a bed with many tubes around the corner. We could talk to him and after a while we realized that he had more than one guardian angel! Then he was brought to the intensive care for the night and the nurse there watched at him and said: “What should do this guy here – he looks too great for my station!”
After a while we had connections to Yves and it seemed that he was hurting more but also stable.
From the phone call of Andrej to the visit in the hospital there were only 90mins passed but it was a feeling of many hours. I’ve never been that headless before. Then I thought when I would have cycled with them it wouldn’t has happened. Or when I wouldn’t have moaning they would have left earlier the flat… There were many thoughts in my mind but at the end I told myself that it’s senseless to say and think this because you never know what would has happened instead. Both of them had an army of guardian angels with them! With 45km/h you can be dead! Yves biggest Guardian Angel was his little son because from his birth on he began to wear an helmet! And if you saw the helmet after the crash you were sure that he wouldn’t have survived – it was totally broken in the middle!
The morning I got up with only 2 hours sleep and drunk a coffee – I normally drink no coffee! and Jo told me the day before to do the track session with Andrej before we visit him again. I still had this bad cold (was just my 3rd day) and I should do them easily. It was my best track session ever, the knee pain was completely vanished and I couldn’t feel the cold any more. But therefore I had to run to the toilet the rest of the day;-) If Andrej wasn’t there I wasn’t able to get to the hospital to pick up Jo – thank you Andrej!
