The coyote, the crash, and the omen.

Yesterday I got off early from work, and as I am driving home I got the urge to go on a quick mountain bike ride before it got dark. I get home, quickly change my clothes and I'm off with my bike to hit the trail. Problem is I would never make it to the trail, and the following story has got to be one of the weirdest things to happen to me(besides sleep paralysis).

There is a paved service road that runs up the backside of a very affluent community here in Las Vegas, it's about a mile long or so and you have to get to the end of it before the trail system begins. I have made the slow ride up this medium grade road a hundred times, it's a chance to lazily make your way to the top, get the muscles warmed up before the real fun begins. Within a minute of riding up this service road I see a coyote cross the road about 75-100 yards in front of me, I watched it as it briskly walked across the desert, admiring it's beauty and grace as it effortlessly made it's escape. To be honest it felt transfixing to watch this animal in it's natural habitat. Suddenly I hear the sound of fast moving knobby tires, I look up to see a mtb rider flying down the hill. I didn't have time to do anything other than let out a quick yell to get his attention and try to start swerving left. I would say he was easily going 20-25 mph, and he was completely unaware of his surroundings, he even had his friggin head down....WITH HEADPHONES ON!

The next thing I know we are exploding into each other, I had a split second to drop my shoulder and brace for impact, he on the other hand didn't even know what happened. I was thrown off my bike and was able to get up quickly and check on the other guy. He was completely unconscious, and to make matters worse he wasn't even wearing a helmet! So the guy is totally gone, eyes rolled back, fast breathing/moaning, and I'm freaking out cause I think the guy is going to die on me. There's blood coming out of his head and I can't get this guy to wake up. Of course this is the one time I don't bring my phone, so I reach inside his pocket and retrieve his iphone. I'm trying to get into his cellphone as a female rider comes down the road, so I ask her if she would call for medical. As she is talking to dispatch he starts to wake up, after being out for about two minutes.

He wakes up enough to turn down an ambulance, but he was definitely concussed cause he kept asking if he was going up the hill or down the hill, like 30 times. Long story short, he recovered enough to ride his bike home, and as my adrenaline came down I realized I might have a broken wrist. After 3 hours in the ER I find out I have no broken bones, but I will be out of work for some time because of my job as a massage therapist.

So here is where it starts to get weird, the whole incident had a surreal feel to it, I couldn't help but think what the odds are of me watching a coyote, and getting blindsided. After all if there was no coyote, which I have never seen any in all my time out there, then I would have been looking at the road and would have easily avoided the rider. So I start thinking that the coyote was bad luck for me, I get on google and type "are coyotes bad luck". The first site listed had this to say.

Navajos have an omen that can also be considered as a taboo. They say that if Coyote crosses your path, turn back and do not continue your journey. If you keep traveling, something terrible will happen to you. You will be in an accident, hurt, or killed.

link

The accident happened exactly where the coyote crossed my path.

I now know to turn around if I see a coyote crossing my path...may save me trouble at some point - Thanks!

a reply to: jaws1975

I had a extremely bad experience here in Australia when a dingo crossed my path. Not quite a coyote but in the same wild dog family anyway. She was a beautiful yellow coloured wild dog that crossed the road in front of me then hung around the side of the road. I stopped the car and got out and called to her. She hid behind a rock then then poked her head out to watch me. I drove on to my destination. On the way back roughly around this area I was involved in a fatal car accident which I have spoken about in other threads. Maybe you are onto something as obviously things like this have happened before. A rational explanation might be that wild dogs know this is an area where there are accidents involving animals (and humans) and is a good spot to grab an easy meal. But if coyotes and maybe dingoes are bad luck maybe it is worth taking into consideration !

I was looking a little closer at this & found an explanation of the Navajo belief that says it's only bad luck if the coyote crosses your path to the east of you - said it's good luck in the other three directions...

Just curious if it happened to be to the east of you?

Here's the link: The Coyote

ETA:
Just because I was bored I looked for an area that met your description on google maps looking at bike trails.
I'm going to guess that you were headed west probably if it's the area I'm looking at (behind Sun Glow Ln...those are some huge houses) & it looks like it's a paved road that connects to a pretty decent size mountain trail...looks like a nice ride

I have thought road runners were the bad luck sign for coyotes.....and so it goes....

a reply to: jaws1975

Perhaps you had an encounter with the Trickster who often appears in the form of a coyote.

a reply to: coldkidc


You are right, I saw the easterly direction comment in a different site, and yes it was headed in a mostly eastern direction, slightly to the south, but mostly eastern.

a reply to: grumpy64

That's a weird story too, not too sure about dingo lore, but they are pretty similar.

I had a coyote cross my path to the south east of me about a month ago lol! I remember it because it was out of place in my neighborhood and entranced me with its beauty. I was going to drive to some friends that night but decided not too

not even kidding !
a reply to: jaws1975

a reply to: Boomy327

Very interesting, did you know about the omen, or was it just your gut instinct?