Terence Fitzgerald of Napier had two heart attacks after he and his small dog Bailey were knocked off his bicycle by an SUV at the Taradale Rd/Hyderabad Rd roundabout. Photo / Warren Buckland
Terence Fitzgerald of Napier had two heart attacks after he and his small dog Bailey were knocked off his bicycle by an SUV at the Taradale Rd/Hyderabad Rd roundabout. Photo / Warren Buckland
No one called an ambulance for Terence Fitzgerald when an SUV collided with his bicycle and sent him and his dog Bailey crashing onto a Napier road.
After spending three minutes unconscious and 20 more minutes in shock beside the Prebensen Drive-Hyderabad Rd roundabout, he rode his mangled bike homeby himself before having the first of two trauma-induced heart attacks.
He had been recovering from a work injury and had cycled to Marine Parade on Thursday afternoon, August 4, to take his dog Bailey for a walk.
Bailey travels in a basket on Fitzgerald's bike. The pair were returning home when the accident happened.
"As I went through Tennyson St and came towards the Hyderabad roundabout, I realised I was about to hit the two worst roundabouts in Napier," Fitzgerald said.
He said he had checked to his right to see if the road was clear, and began to proceed while indicating and was about halfway to the Prebensen exit when the incident happened.
"From nowhere, 'whack!' and all I heard was the impact. I didn't actually know even what had happened," he said.
"I am sent in virtually a plank position straight out onto Taradale Rd and Bailey is sent back out onto the roundabout."
He said Bailey's basket saved both of their lives, as the vehicle struck that first and pushed them out of the impact zone and away from falling under the SUV.
"I was knocked out for about three minutes. A lady said to me 'you went down so hard I can't believe you're not dead'.''
He said traffic stopped and the young driver of the vehicle and the driver's girlfriend came to apologise to him right after the incident.
"He came down, he apologised and said 'I'm sorry bro, I did not see you at all' and his girlfriend is going 'I don't know how you didn't see him, he was right there'."
Terence Fitzgerald of Napier had two heart attacks after he and his small dog Bailey were knocked off his bicycle by an SUV at the Taradale Rd/Hyderabad Rd roundabout. Photo / Warren Buckland
Fitzgerald said he was wearing a hi-vis vest on his white bike with Bailey on the back and indicating with an arm at the time of the incident.
Fitzgerald said he thought the driver had come from behind him intending to use the Taradale Rd exit, but had switched lanes on the roundabout while doing so and hit him in the process.
Bailey had been extra lucky to escape with relatively minimal injuries, but Fitzgerald had a trauma-induced heart attack only three hours later and went to Hawke's Bay Hospital before having a major heart attack early Monday morning, and being transferred to Wellington Regional Hospital by air.
"Four stents and two operations later and here I am."
Fitzgerald said he is a fit person and these were his first heart attacks.
He believes people at the scene of the incident had misread the severity of the situation and left him, which led to no one calling any emergency services.
"I could have been in an ambulance on the spot, not three hours later having a heart attack. Kathy [his partner] wouldn't have had to go through the trauma of taking me to Accident and Emergency in Napier."
Fitzgerald would like to see a widely spread educational messaging campaign on road safety for Hawke's Bay drivers across media platforms and outlets to raise awareness of road safety and prevent more people dying, being injured badly or affected for life like him.
On top of the costs, time off work and mental and physical distress, Fitzgerald will have to take heart medication, blood thinners and cholesterol protection for the rest of his life.
He said he saw near misses "on a daily basis" in his job driving for Diamond Apparelmaster.
He said failure to 'merge like a zip' on the expressway, drivers texting, short following distances and failing to indicate were common on Hawke's Bay roads.
Revisiting the Prebensen Drive-Hyderabad roundabout with Fitzgerald for the first time since his incident, Hawke's Bay Today observed several vehicles that failed to indicate properly entering and exiting, as well as two near misses, involving brakes and horns in one case, within the space of 20 minutes.
"I'll never ride on the roads again in Hawke's Bay, that's how bad it was," he said.
Inspector Matt Broderick, road policing manager for Eastern Police, said roundabouts were not typically a significant risk for police, even ones known to be complex like Taradale Rd and Prebensen Drive.
"The purpose of a roundabout is to slow and manage traffic interactions. Because of that, the connections that do occur are at relatively low speed and so don't result in death or serious injury," Inspector Broderick said.
He said people needed to show courtesy, patience and caution at such complex intersections.
"That's why they say "think once think twice think bike", because there are zones of invisibility around your car, unless you drive in a complete plastic bubble, that you've just got to be aware of and drive accordingly."
