After Losing His Leg in an Accident, This Cyclist Dedicates His Work to Making Streets Safer
From Bicycling.com
By Damian Kevitt, as told to Emily Shiffer
Name: Damian Kevitt
Age: 45
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Occupation: Executive director, Streets Are For Everyone
Time Cycling: 28 years
Reason for Cycling: I ride for enjoyment, to get around (especially when it’s easier than by car) and for my health. Cycling is my form of meditation—me, my body, and the environment around me working as one.
I grew up cycling. My parents used to take me on mini cycling tours as a kid, riding 20 to 30 miles as a family. Dad was in the front, I was in the middle, and my Mom rode behind me. Sometimes we’d pack the our bike panniers and cycle down the coast of Southern California, staying the night at hotels. I loved it. (The only issue: The helmets back then were awful. I looked like an alien.)
As I got older, cycling became the way I got around and helped me be independent. Even after I got a car when I was 17, I would still ride around. Cycling was both enjoyable and a mode of transportation. Later, I got a nifty Cateye computer for my bicycle (it was so cool!) to track my miles and speed, but that’s about all that it did.
I never did a race or a challenge until after I was hit and nearly killed while riding a bicycle in February 2013. I was cycling with my wife in Griffith Park, going on a picnic to the Los Angeles Zoo. Only a few hundred feet from my destination I was hit, pinned underneath a car, and dragged underneath nearly a quarter mile from the streets, onto and down Interstate 5 at freeway speeds. My right leg was ripped off and about 20 pounds of flesh in two minutes. Miraculously, I survived. (I now wear a prosthetic.) It was a hit and run. The driver never stopped and was never caught.
How I survived and my struggles in the hospital and afterwards is worth its own article—but what I can say is that eventually, I got back on my bicycle and started to teach myself how to ride again.
Photo by Hannah Carr on Unsplash
