Chris Stanley rides again, stronger than ever

Published 4:00 pm Saturday, April 23, 2005

Run down by a motorist using a cell phone, he’s back in the saddle.

A year ago, he lay in Harborview’s intensive care unit after a driver distracted by her cell phone ran him down on the highway, leaving his very survival at issue.

Today, Chris Stanley rides again on a new custom bicycle.And the longtime islander is drawing on his experience to educate motorists and bicyclists alike about traffic safety.

“Please consider how you use a cell phone while driving,” he asks, “and how it affects your safety and the safety of those around you.”

On April 16, 2004, Stanley was cycling to run an errand – a common circumstance for the avid rider. He was just south of the intersection of SR-305 and Day Road East when he was struck from behind by a motorist from Bangor who had drifted onto the shoulder while reaching for her cell phone.

First scooped onto the car’s hood and windshield and then hurled 80 feet by the impact of the 50 mph vehicle, Stanley sustained injuries that included a broken neck and a collapsed lung.

Airlifted to Harborview Hospital, he had three surgeries immediately. He lay in critical condition for two days.

But a week later, he was back on Bainbridge at Island Health and Rehabilitation Center. And, just four weeks after that, he came home.

Stanley says he is grateful to the caregivers he encountered on that journey, from the paramedics to the physical therapists, and to the many friends who rallied round.

But it may also be true that his recovery has been accelerated by his own upbeat outlook and determination.

When his breathing tube was removed five days after the accident, Stanley celebrated by singing Broadway show tunes and a Jewish song for healing.

“It was very strange to have someone singing in intensive care,” he said. “But I was singing for joy: ‘Thank God I’m alive.’”

Upright again

Nine days after the accident, he stood for the first time.

When, still in a wheelchair, Stanley resumed teaching at the Seattle Art Institute, he wheeled himself onto the ferry from his Winslow home and then a mile to the school.

The professional artist made art out of his misfortune, turning his mangled bicycle into a sculpture.

And, by early 2005, he resumed riding on a custom machine almost identical to the one he rode last April. But he avoids the 305-Day intersection, the spot with the highest accident rate on the island, according to Bainbridge police statistics.

Stanley can’t recall the events following the accident – and he is grateful for the amnesia that has erased “painful things that have to be really scary.”

But he is more than happy to share thoughts about vehicle safety with bicyclists and motorists alike.

“He’s just amazing because he’s so positive,” Squeaky Wheels bicycle club board member Dana Berg said. “He’s out talking to people, especially high school kids, educating people.”

Stanley’s accident energized an ongoing public conversation on Bainbridge about the use of cell phones in cars.

That discussion has been carried on at the state level; the Legislature has considered a bill that would make the use of the phones while operating a motor vehicle a “secondary” offense – that is, citable for drivers stopped for speeding or another “primary” offense.

The driver who struck Stanley received a citation for negligent driving and paid a $538 fine, according to a Bainbridge Municipal Court records.

Stanley says he doesn’t bear the young driver any ill will for the accident. In fact, he is grateful she pulled over promptly and later was candid about the cause.

It was the young woman’s call to 911, which brought help to Stanley quickly.

Only a still-swollen leg that doctors say will heal over time remains of the long list of injuries. Still, even with all the silver linings, Stanley admits the anniversary is bittersweet.

Someone wished me a ‘happy anniversary,’” he said, “and in some ways it is a happy anniversary because I’m not dead. I’m not even really very disabled…

“But if I had a choice in the matter, it would have never happened.”

Still, he savors a lasting legacy of the event, a new appreciation for the simple things in life.

“We’re given the gift of life and we take it for granted,” he said. “When we come that close to death, it really gives you a sense of how valuable life is.

“When people came to visit me in the hospital, nobody could come into the room without my saying, ‘you have to come and let me hold your hand. You don’t know how close I came to never holding a hand again.’”