BLUE wrote:This happened to me on the evening of 31 October 2017 just before 9 pm. I'd cycled to an event about 2 miles from home, I wasn't hungry (I'd eaten beforehand), hadn't had any alcohol, not even a coffee, no advance warning (I know what it feels like if you're going to faint - it happened to me years ago), no-one else was involved. All I know is I came round in the trauma department in the local hospital, having been unconscious for about an hour, with cuts, grazes to face, nose and hands, 2 black eyes and a headache. I was kept under observation overnight and discharged the following afternoon, looking rather like a zombie. Results of tests (ECGs, bloods etc) all perfectly normal. General fitness - very good. So what happened? My GP has now referred me to the cardiology department. Still waiting for an appointment. In the meantime, I'm advised not to cycle or drive. I'm devastated but realise it could have been so much worse.
Is it possible you were hit by a driver who didn’t stop? People frequently lose all memory of the immediate event in those circumstances, and since you were out cold for some time, you took a serious blow to the head. I assume you got to the hospital thanks to someone who did stop? If traffic was sparse, that driver might have come upon you some time after you were hit, so wouldn’t have actually seen the incident. Unless s/he actually saw you fall, though, s/he wouldn’t be able to rule out your being hit.
Since you don’t mention any damage to your bike, perhaps you’re using that fact to rule out being hit by a car. But if you had been barely grazed—say the car just bumped your handlebar--then went down and lost consciousness upon hitting the pavement, your bike might not show much sign of impact. That might also be why the driver didn’t stop, not being aware that s/he struck you, particularly if you didn’t go down instantly.
If I were in your situation, with no medical explanation forthcoming so far, I would make every effort to rule out this possibility. For example, examine the bike very closely for any signs of contact with a car, such as tiny flecks of paint, any bending of the handlebar or other portion, etc. (Yes, I realize it's a little late to be doing this, but if you haven't ridden since, any evidence is still there). I would also consider the pattern of your injuries, whether they’re entirely consistent with a fall onto pavement, or if some of them are perhaps more likely to have resulted from being hit by a car. From your description of them, it sounds as though you fell face first onto the road, holding your hands in front of you in an attempt to break your fall. If you blacked out without any external cause, you wouldn't be able to place your hands that way (unless you had started to fall before completely blacking out), and i would expect you would probably fall to one side or the other. If it's not too late to ask whoever stopped for you, I'd also want to know where the bike was found in relation to my body. There are all kinds of potential clues available.
And of course you can have a nasty fall without any help from a car. I once was riding my bike at night and went over a trench running across the road. It had been dug to get at a pipe, and hadn’t been completely filled back in. It was one of those obstacles that would have been no problem if I'd seen it in advance and been able to prepare for it, but since it happened suddenly, I lost my balance and went down very hard. As it happened, I didn’t hit my head, but I can imagine that had I done so, and had lost consciousness, it’s possible that when I came to I would not remember falling, and therefore have no idea why I blacked out. And FWIW, one of my hands was especially banged up, because I tried to use it to break my fall.