Curtis Dearden has no memory of the crash or how it happened.
The first thing the Canadian cycling champion remembers is waking up in an ambulance on the way to the hospital Tuesday morning.
“I don’t really know exactly what happened,” he said. “I have like brief memories of being in the ambulance or being en route to the hospital.”
Dearden, 29, was biking to work at Russ Hay’s The Bicycle Shop when the crash happened just after 9:30 a.m.
Victoria police say they got a call about a cyclist down on Gorge Road East near Washington Street. When officers arrived, Dearden was confused and unable to say what had happened.
Marks on the road indicated that the red Cervélo bicycle was headed east when it went down on its side and Dearden slid to a stop. He was wearing a black backpack at the time.
A passerby stopped to assist, but police are still looking for witnesses to the crash.
“The scariest thing for me is not remembering what happened,” Dearden said in an interview Thursday.
Dearden’s wife, Amy, was alerted shortly after the crash and met her husband at hospital, where he was treated for a broken shoulder blade and a concussion.
“It was really scary,” Amy said, adding that, for a short time after the crash, Curtis was unable to remember the age of their nine-month-old daughter. “But that’s come back now, thankfully.”
“I still can’t move my arm around too much,” Dearden said. “I’m hoping within a week or two that I’m able to move it enough that I can get back to work.
“I’m hoping that not too long from now, like days, I’ll be able to train indoors again on the spin bike. They say I can’t do anything outside or anything that gives me any risk of hitting my head for at least a week of no concussion symptoms.”
Dearden, who won the elite men’s time trial at the Canadian National Cycling Championships in July, said he has had no symptoms since the day of the crash. “But I haven’t done any exercise and sometimes that can bring it on,” he said. “I’ve been going for some walks, and that’s been OK.”
Victoria police ask anyone with details about the crash to contact the department’s CRASH team at 250-995-7288.
