Jan Morgan was cycling Monday along Bluff Lake Road, near the Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge, when she suddenly found herself standing on the side of the road, dazed, injured and unable to identify her surroundings.
Morgan, co-owner of Boardtown Bikes, doesn”t remember crashing, nor does she have any idea what might have caused her to wreck, lose consciousness and “come to” on her feet an undetermined amount of time later. One moment she was riding peacefully, and the next she was standing on the side of road with grass and scrapes all over her body, from her arms to her legs to her shoulder to her forehead.
“I don”t even remember falling down,” she said Wednesday from her shop on Russell Street.
Morgan said no vehicles were approaching prior to her accident. She believes she might have accidentally rode off the edge of the road and wrecked while trying to correct her path, but she”s not certain.
The scariest part, however, wasn”t the fact that Morgan couldn”t figure out where she was when she regained consciousness — she thought she might be on the Natchez Trace Parkway– it was the cracks on the inside and outside of her helmet, she said
“If I didn”t have this helmet on, I would have died,” she said.
Morgan flagged down a passing motorcyclist, who pointed her in the direction back toward Starkville. Morgan had a cell phone, but was unable to pick up a signal, so she rode until she reached the top of a hill and called Boardtown Bikes manager Mike Cassibry at the shop. Cassibry then brought Morgan back to Starkville.
Morgan says she suffered a Class III concussion. She had a CT Scan and MRI Wednesday morning and was told the accident caused a subdural hematoma.
Morgan was preparing to race in the Gulf Coast Triathlon this weekend in Panama City, Fla., but had to cancel those plans due to her injuries. She said she was feeling “as well as can be expected” on Wednesday.
“Even though I had a helmet on, I still suffered a significant injury, but it wasn”t as bad as it could have been,” she said.
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