On September 27th, my husband Ted Florez, who is a brother to many and a friend to many more, was hit by a car while riding his bike. We were blessed that the driver stopped and that a quick thinking neighbor called 911. Both were impactful to him being here today. When I arrived at the emergency room he was taken for a x-ray where they discovered he was bleeding internally due to a ruptured spleen. He was immediately taken for emergency surgery to remove his spleen and stabilize multiple fractures in his arm. After a successful surgery I was told his spine was fractured in several areas and would require a spinal fusion. He also had multiple broken ribs that they originally didn't anticipate needing to fix, but after seeing his body working too hard to breathe on its own, they intubated and sedated him to prepare him for surgery. The following 2 to 3 days were a blur while he had surgery on his spine, surgery to repair his ribs, and 2 additional surgeries to repair the fracturs in his arm and wrist. In all he endured 6 surgeries in 7 days. He responded well to every surgery and was moved out of ICU after his last surgery where we started to see improvements. If you know Ted you know he's a fighter and we began focusing on recovery. Over the next day or so he started physical therapy and moved a little more everyday. Tuesday overnight he caught a infection that prompted the doctors to move him back to ICU.

As I write this, he's now out of ICU, just walked further than he's walked in 13 days and sitting across from me. Its not lost on us that he's incredibly lucky to be here. His road to recovery will be a journey and we're both learning a little more everyday about what that journey will look like. We're both fortunate to have health insurance and great jobs, but will exhaust alot of our resources while on this journey. We're not accustomed to asking for help, but pride aside we know leaning into our village during this time will only improve his outcome.

Ted is already thinking about how he can take this experience and use it to educate riders. He did all the right things as a rider...he was in the bike lane and had lights. He will continue to be an advocate for the bicycle community and its important to him that this experience encourages our community to keep riding and keep riding safe.