Impaled cycle rider back on her feet

Claire van Schaik with her bike before the crash. Photo / Hawke's Bay Today

It was meant to be a quiet ride into town for Claire van Schaik but it ended with her lying in agony on the road with a set of handlebars embedded 10cm into her stomach.

The 41-year-old experienced rider was only 30 seconds from her Havelock North home last Friday morning when, she says, a 4WD turned into her path and knocked her off her bike.

"She clipped me ... I hit my head on the road and somehow the whole bike and handlebars turned. That's when the handlebar went in."

Ms van Schaik said she didn't feel it go in she, "just felt pain".

"I tried to get up but fell back down with abdominal pain. I just thought it was the force of the bike hitting me, not realising I'd been punctured."

She told the Herald she wanted to make clear she was riding in a cycle lane when the accident happened.

Members of the public rushed to her aid, including a nurse friend, Lisa McGhee. When the ambulance officers arrived, they didn't immediately tell her the extent of her injury.

"They ascertained what was happening but still didn't really say to me what the involvement of the injury was. They were very thorough and explained what they were doing before they did it, which put me at ease."

It was only when she heard firefighters talking about cutting the handlebars away that she realised something was wrong.

"While that was all happening I thought, 'Maybe I have a bit of the bike there'. When they were talking about it I realised something was wrong."

An allen key was used to separate the handlebars from the bike.

Before she went into surgery she asked Ms McGhee to take some pictures of the grisly wound so she could understand what happened - and what all the fuss was about.

When she saw them, she thought, "Oh my god".

She was shocked that such a blunt object could cause so much damage and believes it was a combination of the force and position she was in.

"It wasn't fast because [the driver] came down the road slow but it was the position and everything. It was just the force of the car and the road to do something like that."

The mother of 9-year-old twins was thankful to be alive and believed the accident was a one-in-a-million.

"If you happened to fall the same way you wouldn't have done that. It was just the force and the way I hit road ... and I didn't go flying across the road. Where she hit me is where I fell." The wound needed 21 staples to close it.

Ms van Schaik believed her recovery was helped by her being a positive person. She is recovering at home with the help of her mother.