Kristen Layton planned to meet friends at Espresso ROMA Café near campus Monday afternoon, but her car had a flat tire.
Deciding to ride her bike instead, Layton, a University junior and mother of two, peddled north along Alder Street, passing Greek houses and overhanging maple trees.
Then a burgundy GMC Yukon slammed into her, sending Layton rolling across its hood and into the air.
She landed on the street, her newly purchased Macintosh laptop cushioning her face as it hit the pavement. She feared for her life.
“Once she hit me, I didn’t hear anything anymore,” she said. “It was very surreal. And then I thought I was going to be dead because I thought my neck was broken.”
Layton was rushed to Sacred Heart Medical Center. Doctors later found she had a broken right elbow, soft tissue damage to her knees, hip and neck and possibly broken ribs.
Eugene police cited the driver, University student Michelle R. Parshall, 28, with failing to yield to a bicycle in a bike lane, a traffic violation.
Layton, who had recently left a job, had set this week aside for finding a new one. Instead, she’s constantly loopy from painkillers, unable to shake a persistent headache and is still discovering body parts that hurt as they grow increasingly discolored with bruises.
A 25-year-old anthropology and molecular biology major, Layton hopes to become a research scientist. Already a week behind in school, Layton decided to drop her math class Thursday after talking with her professor, who said it would be difficult for her to finish it without her writing hand.
She also must find note takers for her upper-division anthropology classes.
Besides school, she cares for her 2- and 8-year-old children and her 14-year-old nephew at their home at Spencer View Apartments. At first, she had trouble reaching their second-floor apartment, but downstairs neighbor Charles Sheinin and his wife, the people Layton had planned to meet that afternoon, let her stay with them.
The accident occurred as Layton crossed East 15th Avenue on her silver Raleigh mountain bike, her three-week-old black laptop strapped to her back. She often rides to school, although she sometimes drives so she can shuttle her children.
“That’s when the enormous Suburban death vehicle came, and I realized she wasn’t stopping,” Layton said.
“I flew up over the vehicle, hit the bug shield in the front and broke part of that off, I think with my elbow,” she said. “And then I rolled onto the hood, and hit the windshield.”
“I had my computer and my purse on my back. My computer flew around and hit my face just as I hit the ground, so that kind of saved me because I had a padded computer case.”
One of several witnesses, a woman stopped to comfort Layton, and Layton instructed her to find the Sheinins at Espresso ROMA.
Meanwhile, Sheinin heard sirens down the street. When the woman found him, he and his wife ran to the intersection where the accident occurred to find Layton strapped to a stretcher, he said.
“She was screaming, crying,” he said. “As I would be if I got hit by a SUV.”
Layton’s bicycle lay completely under the SUV, pinned by its back wheels.
“It was like the SUV just came and ate it,” Sheinin said. “The car must have traveled at least a car length and just a little bit more than that before it came to its final resting place.”
Parshall didn’t apologize at first, saying she didn’t see the bike coming, Layton said.
“There were various witnesses who were bicyclists who were surrounding her and were very angry,” Layton said. “Police said she said she was sorry and wanted to call me, but I didn’t want to talk to her.”
Parshall couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.
Layton said she’s heard of several people getting hit near campus, although she hadn’t worried about her safety while riding. She wasn’t wearing a helmet at the time of the crash.
Bicyclists need more paths free of cars in Eugene, she said.
“I was just happy I wasn’t dead,” she said. “Most cars don’t fare well in accident with SUVs of that size.”
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