SLO County cyclist recalls hit-and-run crash: ‘Dude, you’re going to hit me!’
A hit-and-run collision with a car in Cambria left cyclist Laura Lowe with two shattered collarbones, two broken ribs and horrific memories of the impact.
Lowe was heading south on Highway 1 on a green light on Sept. 24, when a black vehicle turned right from Ardath Drive onto the highway into her bike.
The driver of the car then drove off.
Now, thanks to vigilant Cambrians who called in tips to law enforcers, CHP officers firmly believe they have impounded the vehicle involved.
The black Chevrolet was towed from a Cambria neighborhood, and was being “inspected and analyzed” by forensics investigators, CHP Officer Jose Meza said.
He said that “the type of damage on the vehicle matches” the damage on the bicycle.
Lowe, a personal trainer and former competitive athlete, has competed in 13 Iron Man distance triathlon events, including five Hawaiian races — finishing in the top 20 twice.
She also works as a guide at Hearst Castle in San Simeon, leading kid-friendly physical fitness education tours via the monument’s “Parks PE” online videos.
Regular bike rides are a vital part of the 60-year-old’s training.
Around 9 a.m. Sept. 24, Lowe was taking a familiar route on Highway 1 from and to her home in Morro Bay. Then she planned to go for a swim to, as she put it, “endorphinize.”
As she topped the hill from Cambria Drive to Burton Drive, “I was getting up my momentum,” Lowe said.
She then headed for the Ardath Drive stoplight, head tucked down in what cyclists call the “arrow position,” with arms stretched out on specialized, extended handlebars.
Lowe saw her green light on Highway 1, and caught a glimpse of a black car coming down Ardath Drive toward the intersection.
“He’s got the red light,” she recalled thinking. “I’m going downhill, baby!”
Traveling at maybe 38 mph, the 117-pound woman estimated, she and her 21-pound bicycle were like a rocket.
But the car didn’t stop, instead gunning it into the intersection and turning right.
In her mind, Lowe said she continues “to replay the black sedan pulling out in front of me, and me thinking, ‘Dude, you’re going to hit me!’ ”
She estimates she’ll battle post traumatic stress disorder from those few seconds of terror for a long time. “Physical trauma is one thing. The PTSD is another,” she said.
Lowe’s memory of what happened next is spotty.
But she does remember a Good Samaritan witness who made a split-second decision about whether to chase the hit-and-run driver or “save my life,” Lowe said.
That witness made a quick U-turn on the highway and went to the injured cyclist, whose feet were “still clipped into my bike,” she said. “I must have been unconscious for a few seconds.”
Her first words after regaining consciousness were “Is my bike OK and, dammit, my shoulder really hurts!”
She took such a hard hit to the head that her helmet split. Lowe said that her training, her excellent physical condition and her position on the bike undoubtedly saved her life.
“I have to take an attitude of gratitude for being alive,” she said, even though “it’s difficult to take a path of forgiveness.”
Lowe had planned to get back on her barely damaged bike and go home, but patient paramedic Mike convinced her she needed to get into a Cambria Community Healthcare District ambulance and head to Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo.
Lowe spent six hours in the emergency room on Sept. 24, and underwent surgery the next day so doctors could piece together her right clavicle and repair the left one.
At the hospital, Lowe did some delicately engineered squats in her room with her beloved charge nurse Debra. The injured woman was trying to prove to her doctor that she was able to go home.
Those squats “were our nurse booty camp,” Lowe said with a chuckle.
Debra, whose last name Lowe can’t recall, “was like my Scarecrow to Dorothy,” she explained, comparing the pair to characters from “The Wizard of Oz.”
The day after her surgeries, Lowe went home. She was determined to get away from the pain medications that had made her vomit for hours straight, and begin exercising.
Until she heals, her exercise is limited to physical therapy for her balance along with short-distance walks with a caregiver beside her. A decision about physical therapy for her upper body is still weeks away.
Lowe had high praise for her rescuer, her nurse, responding CHP Officer Ryan Denker, caring community members and the Cambrians who banded together to locate the car that hit her.
According to Meza, if forensics prove that the vehicle that CHP impounded is indeed the one that collided with Lowe, “People in Cambria will have solved it”
“We received so many calls on that Monday,” he said. “They kept saying, ‘I read about it in the paper.’ ”
The remaining investigation may take some time, however, Meza said. The investigators “have a lot on their plates right now,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lowe’s friends and Castle co-workers Shari Fortino and Mike Smothers have established a GoFundMe campaign to help defray the injured cyclist’s medical expenses and other costs not covered by her health insurance.
As of Sunday morning, the “Laura Lowe Needs Our Help” fundraiser had raised more than $6,000 toward a $10,000 goal. To contribute, go to gofundme.com/f/laura-lowe-needs-our-help.
This story was originally published October 3, 2021 at 11:42 AM.
