"He turned his head to see what was going on, and there was the steel grille of a black van heading straight toward him."

From “Lucky Jim,” Elizabeth Gilbert’s amazing 2002 GQ profile of Jim MacLaren, an incredibly accomplished athlete and actor who suffered two devastating accidents and passed away last year:

“Soon he could run a marathon in just over three hours, routinely finishing in the top third of able-bodied contenders. And then he took up triathlons. Yes, triathlons. Once he’d survived a few of those, he set out to conquer the Ironman, one of the most brutal organized sporting events ever imagined. Two and a half miles of swimming, 112 miles of biking and a full 26.2-mile marathon, all in one race, all in one day. And all on one leg. Which explains what Jim MacLaren was doing in Southern California on that cool June afternoon in1993. He was participating in an Ironman.Jim was excelling. He was speeding through the town of Mission Viejo on his bicycle, tearing ass at thirty-five miles per hour. The sidewalks were crowded with spectators, and he was dimly aware of their cheers. He had just pulled ahead of a thick snarl of cyclists. He was leading the pack. Suddenly, Jim heard the crowd gasp. He turned his head to see what was going on, and there was the steel grille of a black van heading straight toward him. He realized he was about to be hit by a goddamn car.It was supposed to have been a closed racecourse. But for some unknown reason,a cop guarding an intersection decided to let one car through, and he misjudged how fast the bicyclists were coming. As Jim MacLaren was approaching,the cop was gesturing to the driver of the van to hit the gas. The driver, a 50-year-old man on his way to church, was merely obeying orders. He floored it. He didn’t see Jim until Jim was on his windshield.This time Jim vividly remembers being hit. He remembers the screams from the crowd. He remembers his body flying across the street and smashing into a lamppost headfirst, snapping his neck. He remembers riding in the ambulance and being aware that he could not feel his limbs. He was put under anesthesia for emergency surgery on his spine, and when he woke up he was in the trauma ward. He could not move. His head was shaved. There was a bolt screwed into the back of his skull, preventing him from shifting his head even a millimeter. Jim remembers this well. But what he remembers most clearly is this image: All the nurses were in tears.’We’re so sorry,’ they kept saying. Jim MacLaren was now a quadriplegic. He was 30 years old. And this is where his story begins.” (Thanks Kevin Kelly.)

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