Accidents...

I've been walking on Tue & Thur with two of my neighbors lately. The kids bring their bikes and ride down the road and get back to the house way before we do and play with the kitties while they wait for us. This has typically been fun for all and a great way for us to get some exercise. This past Tue our walk was a disastrous one, though. One of the neighbors couldn't come because her child was sick with strep throat, so just two of us starting walking and the 5 kids went off on their bikes. A little way down the road we heard the kids, but they're always making noise so we didn't think much of it at first. Then the noise sounded more like screaming... we high tailed it down the road and I don't even remember flying over the cattle guard. I found Ashlyn screaming hysterically, a little scraped up and missing a shoe, and then I noticed Colten's best friend, Jason, walking toward me, bleeding profusely out of his mouth, scraped up all over, and also missing a shoe. I was very confused and freaking out! I checked him for broken bones (none thankfully!) and tried to see where the blood was coming from. By then his mom was there and Ashlyn was bawling. Thankfully Leann had brought her phone, so we called John to bring the truck down. They went up to the house and I stayed with the other kids to look for his shoe -in all the craziness Jason was very concerned about his bike and his shoe. His sister finally found it a few yards down the road in the grass. The kids and I walked back up to the house with the bikes and found Jason and his mom cleaning him up in the bathroom to see what the damage was. After things had settled down some, we got the story. The boys had ridden ahead some and stopped at the creek below the church. Jason must have been turning around or going across the little bridge when Ashlyn came barreling down the hill, unable to stop on the gravel road or go off the road b/c of the creek. She screamed to move, but too late. She ran straight into him and they both must have slid down the road aways, entangled in their bikes. Ashlyn managed to get herself and the bikes off of Jason and started screaming for us. And that's when we found them. Jason doesn't remember any of it. Ashlyn is very upset about the whole thing, rightfully so, so she made him a card and she had us get him a new Bakugan and some M&M's and ice cream (boy flowers) and we brought them over to him last night. His face is very scraped up and his lips are swollen (most of the blood was from him biting the inside of his cheek). He has a really bad scrape on one arm and other scrapes all over. Leann decided it wasn't bad enough for the ER, but has kept him home from school to heal as he is still very sore. Ashlyn is banged up a bit, too, with a big scrape on her elbow, and others on her knee, wrist and side. We did scold her for going so fast, but she has really been beating herself up about it so don't want to make it much worse for her. We are trying to use this as a good lesson - See what happens when you're not paying attention on a bike? Imagine what could happen in a car... Ashlyn, being less than 3 years from getting her driver's license, will hopefully be painfully reminded of this incident while driving. Once Jason is ready to ride again, I think they will all be more careful, but we will still be reminding them of the rules of the road.