When Stoke woman Marg Farrelly knocked her leg on her friend’s bike stand while out for a ride, she thought it was just a ‘little knock’. She says if it wasn’t for a stranger who stopped the bleeding she could have been in big trouble. Now she wants to find that stranger to say thanks. Sara Hollyman reports.
It was a normal morning when Marg Farrelly set off from her Waimea Rd home on a bike ride with her husband and friend last month.
But what eventuated turned into a nightmare for the Nelson woman.
The group rode to Brightwater and around Mt Heslington, then on for their usual coffee stop at Headquarters in Brightwater at about 11am before setting off for home.
Riding along Hill St, Marg’s friend stopped ahead of her at the intersection of Queen St. Marg thought her friend was starting to cross the intersection, but she applied her brakes and prepared to stop, seeing a car coming towards the intersection in the distance.
What happened next, nobody quite understands.
Her friend didn’t cross the intersection, and Marg came up a little too close, gently brushing shoulders with him as she came to a stop.
Marg felt a slight sting in her leg and assumed she had scratched it on her pedal as she had placed her foot to the ground.
“I didn’t think anything of it,” Marg says.
Her friend continued, Marg followed, with her husband much further ahead.
“On the other side of the intersection I thought ‘oh, that’s still stinging’, I looked down and saw a few trails of blood on the front of my leg and thought ‘oh dear’.”
Marg is on blood thinners for a heart condition, so knew she had to pull over and stop the bleeding.
She had a small first aid kit and thought the plasters in there would do the trick.
“But when I looked down again, there was blood just pouring out the back, it had gone right through, there was a hole at the back.”
Marg had impaled her leg on the kick stand of her friend’s bike, which they would only find out later when he came to clean his bike.
The paramedic would later tell her he could see the bone; the hole was that big, straight through her leg.
“The first thing I did was grab a pad from the small first aid kit and a wad of paper towels to plug both the front and back, then I called 111 for an ambulance. Knowing that I’m a bleeder and seeing the amount was quite frightening.”
Marg says she was told by paramedics that there was more than 500ml of blood in a pool where she had been sitting on the kerbside.
“And that’s not even what I’d left trailing down the street.”
Marg’s husband and friend had continued riding, but they were checking in their rearview mirror and saw flashes of yellow, much like the hi-vis that Marg had on, so assumed she was following.
What they didn’t realise was the yellow they were seeing was that of recycling bins placed on the kerb.
After calling the ambulance she made contact with her husband and told him what had happened.
Marg says a couple of people stopped to offer help, but one in particular she would like to seek out to thank.
He stopped in a white car and pulled out a big first aid kit. He found two large pads and an elasticated bandage which they wrapped tightly around the wound.
“It was really good because nothing was leaking through it, that was all nice and secure and safe.”
Marg gets emotional when she thinks of the difference that the man made.
“I’m desperate to be able to thank him. If it wasn’t for him, I could’ve bled out.”
She says people like that, who are prepared to stop when they see someone sitting on the side of the road, deserve recognition.
Marg spent two nights in hospital following surgery, being released just two days short of her 70th birthday.
She is still recovering from the injury and cannot be on her leg for longer than 10 minutes each hour, but she is thankful that there is still not a lot of pain.
She says it’s almost an unbelievable tale and the fact she had almost no pain made it even stranger.
If you are, or know, the Good Samaritan who stopped to help Marg, please email us at sara@topsouthmedia.co.nz
