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Waiting,
hoping for a miracle
Energetic bike messenger struggles for life after crash
Rocky Mountain News, November 5, 2001
By James B. Meadow
It was a glorious October afternoon and "Two-Five Steve" was percolating
with energy, zipping through downtown aboard his red Haro bicycle, a messenger-adventurer
ready to put the finishing touches on another delivery.
His reliability was a given, if not legend, among the bicycle courier community.
He was the kind of guy who "took a lot of pride in doing the impossible job
and finishing it early."
But this was one delivery that Two-Five Steve -- aka Steve Ingram -- wouldn't
finish.
As he headed the wrong way on 14th Street, he probably never saw the black
Ford Explorer approaching on his left. Never saw it heading east on Glenarm
Place, proceeding into the intersection with the green light in its favor.
The impact propelled the cyclist 21 feet up Glenarm. By the time the ambulance
arrived, Ingram was unconscious. His pelvis and spine were fractured. So
were parts of his skull, as well as numerous ribs and vertebrae. Just about
every bone in his face was broken. He was having trouble breathing.
It was a horrible sight, but one that the driver of the SUV didn't hang around
long enough to see. According to the police report, the driver "came to a
controlled stop," parked his vehicle and left on foot. It would be a few
days before the police tracked him down, and a few days after that before
he turned himself in.
"He's very remorseful," said Det. Steve McKenna, the officer in charge of
the case. McKenna also said that although the driver was charged with leaving
the scene of an accident, "He was not charged with being at fault in the
accident." Also, "It is my belief that the guy wasn't speeding."
That information won't sit well with Ingram's fellow couriers who, like Brian
Beardsley, say, "I heard the guy was doing over 40 when he hit Steve."
Marcus Chavez, another Ingram friend and colleague, said "Everybody is pretty
somber about what happened. And angry. This is a courier's worst nightmare:
Some driver hits you, runs off and you get messed up pretty bad."
Not that most of those close to Ingram have time for anger. They're too busy
trying to send positive energy to the guy former boss Chris Grealish describes
as "so full of life; just really bubbling with child-like enthusiasm."
But there is nothing bubbly about the 29-year-old man who lies as motionless
as a stone in an isolation room of the Intensive Care Unit at Denver Health
Medical Center, tubes snaking out of his head, neck and torso, his vital
signs displayed on a monitor above him, a machine doing his breathing for
him. His face is still bruised and misshapen.
But the most serious injuries are to his brain. Ingram is in a drug-induced
coma to help alleviate swelling.
"He's got the bruises in his brain," said Dr. Kerry Brega, the neurosurgeon
who has been treating Ingram. Just as dangerous, added Brega, is that Ingram
suffered a "shear injury," a stretching or tearing of the neurons in the
brain stem, which controls countless functions from breathing to walking.
All this data -- and more -- is churning inside the head and heart of the
person closest to Ingram.
"It physically hurt my stomach when I first saw Steve. I couldn't talk at
first; I was choking back so many tears," said Gabi Borst, Ingram's fiancee.
The two have been together for a year, but it only took minutes for her to
know that "we were soul mates; we were going to spend our lives together."
They got a head start when they moved into their snug, one-bedroom basement
apartment in Capitol Hill. The one with cycling posters on the wall and a
hot-water pipe, festooned with Christmas lights, that runs the length of
their ceiling. The one they share with their three cats and Wedgel, a turtle
that Steve found in an alley and brought home, just like the stray dogs he
used to bring home as a kid growing up in Woodbridge, Va., a town 35 miles
south of Washington, D.C.
Ingram proposed to Borst in July, when they were in Budapest, where he was
competing in the Cycle Messenger World Championships.
"Cycling is his world; it's the most important thing in his life next to
me. That's why he became a bike messenger," Borst said. "It's never repetitive;
he gets to be outside and have a different adventure every day. And he gets
to ride his bike."
Part of Ingram's adventure was his affinity for his identifying number, 25.
That's how dispatchers would reach him, and that's how he would answer.
"He's crazy about that number," Borst said with a laugh. "He'll be walking
on a street and the sign will say the speed limit is 25 miles per hour, and
he'll point to it and say, 'Two-five! That's me.' "
Borst spent the first two-and-a-half days after the Oct. 22 accident sleeping
in the hospital. Now, she visits two or three times a day, sometimes reading
aloud to Ingram from It's Not About the Bike, the autobiography of three-time
Tour de France winner and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, whom she said
is his hero. Sometimes she just stands there next to him, stroking his hand,
kissing it; saying softly, "Hi, Sweetie, how are you? You know I love you.
Everybody loves you. Just stay strong, Precious."
Right now, doctors are in the process of weaning Ingram from the drugs which
kept him sedated. Until they lower the doses, Brega said, "We don't know
if he'll remain in a permanent vegetative state, or if he'll ever become
independent again."
But Ingram's fiancee knows.
"I know only a small percentage of people make it through this, but he's
gonna be the one, I know it."
She also knows that on Saturday "Steve opened his eyes. He gave me a kiss.
He was moving his hands a little. It's a miracle."
The odds of a miracle occurring are long, but you never can tell. And if
anyone is looking for signs, they might start with the fact that Two-Five
Steve's room number is 2522.
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