VALDOSTA — Cycling enthusiast Mark Whatley has had accidents before. On a ride 11 years ago, he suffered a shattered collarbone and a fractured pelvis when a dog knocked him off his bike. He was unable to walk for about four weeks.

But this time, he may never walk again, and getting back on the bike saddle is a lofty goal indeed.

On his regular morning bike ride Sept. 10, Whatley was hit from behind by a Ford Explorer near the intersection of Inner Perimeter Road and Lakeland Highway.

At around 6:30 a.m., when the accident occurred, it was still dark; the sun rose that day at 7:15 a.m., according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. But Whatley was wearing a white cycling jersey and was using a white headlight mounted on the front of his bike and a flashing red light on the rear.

“I don’t know how this woman could have possibly missed me,” Whatley said. “And when I got hit, the force threw me about five to seven feet off into the grass. My legs were tingling, and I knew something wasn’t right.”

The accident happened very suddenly. Whatley heard no approaching car behind him, and only began to understand what was happening as he was flying through the air, watching his bike hurl off in another direction, he said.

He doesn’t remember hitting the ground, he said, but remembers lights driving off. Not wanting to chance further damage to his legs, he didn’t try to stand up, and instead clawed his way to the side of the road, where he used his helmet to flag down a passing motorcyclist who came to his aid and informed 911 of the accident.

Holding tears back behind a haunted expression, Whatley recalled the memory of the sensations he endured that morning.

“The force of the accident, I can still close my eyes and see it… Feel it…,” Whatley said, pausing for a few seconds to swallow. “I’ve never been in that much pain in my life.”

The driver, Afton Green, 30, of Valdosta, didn’t stop. After Whatley was loaded into the ambulance, police used pieces broken off the Explorer—including a side mirror—to identify the vehicle, and followed the “tire flap” for a distance,  Whatley said. The bike frame had punctured a tire.

Valdosta police soon found a Ford Explorer with a missing side mirror and damaged front fender at a tire shop, and arrested the woman after a few questions, Whatley said.

Green told police that because of poor lighting, she thought she had hit a dog, according to the police report of the incident. She said she was not able to tell she had hit a person on a bicycle, although she had extensive damage to one of her tires, the report states.

Green was charged with leaving the scene of an accident, improper passing, license not on person and expired tags, the report states. Her license was suspended, but she had a work permit, according to the report.

Leaving the scene of an accident is a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine between $300 and $1,000 and up to 12 months in prison, according to the Valdosta Police Department.

After the incident, Whatley was transported to South Georgia Medical Center, where he was told he could go home after doctors reviewed his X-rays, he said. But he knew it was much worse than what doctors told him was just bruising.

“I could not walk,” he said. “I was screaming in pain every time they would try to get me to my feet, and they sent me home.”

Whatley followed up with a family physician, who sent him back to the ER for an MRI, Whatley said. Back in the ER, doctors ordered a CAT scan instead.

“At that moment I thought, crap, they’ve found something,” Whatley said.

The CAT scan showed that the accident has left Whatley with a “burst fracture” in his L3 vertebra—essentially a complete shattering of the bone—and a simple fracture in his T12 vertebra. His neurologist gave him a single choice: Shands Medical Plaza in Gainesville or Emory in Atlanta.

“There was no doubt I was going into surgery that night,” Whatley said.

Whatley left Valdosta at 6:30 p.m., arrived at Shands at 8:30 p.m. and was in surgery by 9:30 p.m, he said. At 4 a.m., when the surgery was finished, he could wiggle his big toe.

“I could sort of see it trying to move a little bit,” Whatley said. “That was it; that was all I had.”

Over the next 10 days, he gained more feeling and movement in his feet while he spent time in recovery, then he was transferred to rehabilitation at SGMC, where he spent 16 days in occupational and physical therapy twice a day.

“After 16 days, I was basically done,” Whatley said. “They sent me home with restrictions, and that was about all they could do for me. So I came home. I’ve been home since Oct. 5.”

Whatley still works on parallel bars in rehab to regain the strength to his legs, but progress is slow, he said. Sensation along his shins “feels muted,” he said, and he cannot lift his legs while lying on his back nor support his own body weight.

To him, the uncertainty is very disturbing.

“Nobody can say you’re going to walk again; nobody can say you’re going to be in a chair the rest of your life,” Whatley said. “I’m still healing from the accident, still healing from the surgery. It will take a couple of months for the swelling to go down.”

Whatley has two titanium rods in his back fusing the bones above and below L3. It seems ironic that his bike frame, which he hasn’t seen since the accident, was also made of titanium.

During the surgery, doctors screwed together the larger pieces of L3 that were still intact to make a sort of “Frankenstein type vertebra,” Whatley said, which appears noticeably smaller in his post-op X-rays.

“So my ballet career is pretty much a done deal…” Whatley joked.

But the moment is short lived, as he is heartbroken. The thought of never being able to ride again, of never sharing the lifestyle with his two sons, 10 and 7, brings tears to his eyes.

“Ever since they’ve been old enough to ride a bike, in the summers we’d ride over to Brusters to get ice cream,” Whatley said. “I just wanted to ride with my kids, to share my love of cycling with them.”

His oldest tries to help around the non-ADA-compliant house, but his youngest is having a difficult time understanding the gravity of the situation, Whatley said. His wife broke the news to the children, and his family has been very supportive.

In spite of his immense struggle to recover and to adapt to his new lifestyle, Whatley feels no anger at the circumstances. A Valdosta State University psychology professor, Whatley understands the process toward acceptance well.

“I’m not angry; what I’m angry about is she didn’t stop,” Whatley said. “She didn’t have the common decency to stop. But in terms of blaming her, accidents happen all the time.

“She didn’t intend to do this to me; it was just a lack of focus for a moment on her part. Being angry at her is not going to do anything to help me.”

To prevent accidents like his, it’s not just drivers who need to be more careful about cyclists, Whatley said; everyone on the road needs to be aware of their surroundings at all times.

“Because in the blink of an eye,” Whatley said, weeping, “your life changes. I’m happy to be breathing in and out, but it’s been an enormous stress on my family, and we’ve been coping.”

When he re-considers the circumstances of the accident, Whatley has no advice for cyclists. He was doing everything right, and the accident still happened, he said.

“I can’t say this is how and what you should watch out for, because the driver coming up behind you could hit a nail, have a blowout and careen into you, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Whatley said. “The world is not a controllable place. It’s an illusion.”

Still, if someone had told Whatley the day before that he would have had an accident that would threaten his life and leave him without the ability to walk, and that he had to give up cycling forever to save himself, he still wouldn’t have given it up, he said.

Cycling helped to clear his head and kept him in shape. Carrying dog biscuits in his pockets, he would stop and “make friends” with canines he encountered, he said. He never trained for races and often went out for rides alone, but cycling was a passion—more, an obsession.

The Valdosta cycling community, as well as friends, churches and neighbors, have supported Whatley through his experience. The Azalea City Cyclists (ACC) emailed him a group photo in which his pals, decked in riding gear and standing in front of their bikes, hold up a handmade sign reading “Get Well Mark.”

“It’s a tragic accident that didn’t need to happen,” said ACC unofficial president Patrick Paige said. “Mark had all the gear on, made all the safety precautions, had his lights on. He obeyed all the rules of the road and he still got hit.”

Drivers often see cyclists as a nuisance that slows them down when they’re in a rush, Paige said, and it’s important for motorists to remember that people on bikes are not just obstacles.

“While we might seem like someone on a bicycle with no face, we’re husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, daughters and sons,” Paige said. “We need to remind them that we’re people with families just like people in cars.”

Paige shared his favorite story about sharing the road: when he was living in Alabama, a friend of his said a car had made a speedy pass to overtake him by a narrow margin while he was on a ride, honking his horn and narrowly missing him. The driver stopped at the light about 100 yards ahead, and the cyclist pulled up and the driver rolled down his window.

“My friend told him, ‘Thank you.’” Paige said. “He could see the anger in the driver’s face, and he said ‘Thank you for not killing me; I have a wife and two kids at home.’ Ever since I heard that story, when drivers honk, I wave.”

Paige said there is no road that is the most safe on which to ride bicycles, save the fact that country roads are often less busy than roads within the city. Riding with a group, even if it’s two people, is safer than riding alone.

Using brightly-colored safety apparel like reflective vests and blinking lights at night can raise visibility, and always wearing a helmet can save your life.

Drivers must yield a minimum distance of three feet when passing a cyclist, according to section 40-6-56 of the Georgia Traffic Law and Georgia House Bill 101 passed May 11, 2011.

Bicycles are considered vehicles by the Georgia Department of Transportation, and are protected by law to ride on any road motorists use, regardless of whether there is a bike lane.



Advice for cyclists and drivers

• There is no road that is “most safe” to ride

• Children under 16 are required to wear helmets by law

• Always wearing a helmet can save your life

• Rural routes often have less traffic than city routes

• Wear brightly-colored apparel like reflective vests or jerseys

• Use a front headlight and a blinking tail light at night

• Drivers must yield a minimum distance of three feet when passing cyclists

• Bicycles are considered vehicles by GDOT, and are allowed to use any road regardless of whether there is a bike lane

Source: Azalea City Cyclists and Georgia Traffic Law