The Search for Official Evidence (When You Become the Lead Story, part 5)

I began to think about the long-term implications of the incident. Carole told me she had pressed the button for the pedestrian crossing signal and waited until the light was with her. That suggested the cyclist might have run a red light, assuming the month-old traffic signals were working and properly synchronized.

But what if the cyclist’s insurer refused to reimburse any portion of our medical bills? What did we have if it came down to their word against Carole’s? One of the first questions an insurance company would surely ask was “What is the police report number?” There wasn’t one, of course. Did that mean we had nothing?

On Wednesday morning I started to make phone inquiries into what sort of official record this incident had generated, if any. Portland Fire & Rescue had responded to the scene, obviously; when I called them, a representative told me that AMR Ambulance would have taken the lead in filing an incident report. I looked up the ambulance company’s website and found a form I had to print out and mail to request a copy of whatever they had recorded.

Then I called the Portland Police Bureau. As I worked my way through the PPB phone tree, I was astonished to speak with two different police department employees who didn’t know what Tilikum Crossing was. One repeated “Tillamook?” (a town on the Pacific Coast), and when I explained I was referring to a bridge in downtown Portland, she said: “Learn something new every day!” A second employee, when I finished outlining the incident, commented: “I didn’t know there was a bridge there.”

I established that the Portland Police Bureau had no record of responding to a 911 call at that location on Sunday morning. I told the police department that I wished to file a report. Eventually, someone took my name and number and said an officer would get back to me.

It occurred to me that the crash site was at the east end of a MAX light-rail platform. These stations have many security cameras; over the years, we’ve gotten accustomed to seeing video footage from such cameras on the TV news of assaults on train platforms, small children stepping onto or off a train while the parent is left on the other side of the doors, people attacking a bus driver, and similar incidents.

I decided to ask Trimet to look at their video footage from that morning and find out whether any of the cameras on the Orange Line MAX platform at SW Moody and Meade recorded the collision. To be honest, I though it unlikely anything would turn up, particularly since the cameras at the end nearest to the pedestrian crossing would probably be pointed away from it and toward the platform in general, but perhaps the cameras at the far end might be facing in a direction that would have picked up something.

Later Wednesday afternoon I received a return call from a city police officer. After hearing my account, she said, you got the cyclist’s name and number so it’s a civil matter. But the other guy might have broken the law, I protested. Our job is primarily to be a peacekeeper, she replied. She gave me to understand that if the parties behave as they’re supposed to, the police don’t have to do anything else.

I was flabbergasted, because if the cyclist had run a red light -- and therefore violated a traffic ordinance -- then I would think he should be subject to citation and bear the brunt of the responsibility for my wife’s injuries and our mounting medical bills. But as far as the Portland Police were concerned, the collision never happened. As far as Trimet or the Portland Bureau of Transportation were concerned, it had never happened. Officially speaking, Tilikum Crossing retained a clean safety record.

With no official record of the event that had put my wife in the hospital for more than two days, I feared any attempt to get someone else to pay our medical bills would come down to “you say, we say.” In effect, it seemed to me that the police had handed off the investigatory responsibility to the insurance companies; and they have an economic incentive to treat the assertions of claimants with skepticism. They might well conclude: “You’re on your own.” The possibility made me feel very nervous, and very alone.

What made me feel less alone was Facebook. As I posted updates on the incident and Carole’s medical condition over the ensuing week, dozens of well wishes, accounts of similar incidents, and suggestions poured in.

Friends talked about their near-collisions and actual crashes with bicycles. “I was knocked down by a bicyclist over a year ago in the South Park Blocks (he didn’t even stop) and I am still recovering,” a member of one of my book discussion groups commented. Another friend remarked: “I live on the South Waterfront and bicyclists, however apologetic they may be down in that area, are so aggressive and don’t allow others to occupy the space.”

A key piece of advice came from a friend and colleague in the theater-poetry community whom I probably hadn’t laid eyes on in a couple of years. She is also a serious bicyclist, and she wrote: “This is such a sad thing to have happened. I looked for the coverage of what happened on BikePortland.org, but didn’t see it.” She advised me to get in touch with the editor-publisher of that blog, Jonathan Maus; “I’m sure he’d consider devoting an article to your story, which would be an opportunity to warn cyclists who bike through that area, and begin a solution-finding process to prevent this happening to anyone else.”

From her observations as a pedestrian, biker, and streetcar rider through the intersection in question, my friend felt “there are grave design issues there that need to be fixed.”

As it turned out, her suggestion that I contact BikePortland.org turned out to be the first of two key communications via Facebook that would move Carole’s misfortune beyond an isolated and undocumented incident.

LESSON NO. 4: SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS CAN BE A VALUABLE SOURCE OF ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE, EVEN IF YOU DON’T SPECIFICALLY ASK FOR THEM.

Read “When You Become the Lead Story, part 1” -- introduction

Read “When You Become the Lead Story, part 2” -- the setting and a bum steer

Read “When You Becomethe Lead Story, part 3” -- immediate aftermath

Read “Two-Plus Days in the Hospital (When You Become the Lead Story, part 4)”