Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota Executive Director Back to Work After Crash

Executive Director Dorian Grilley

Good news today from the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota.  After a pretty nasty crash back in August 2010 Executive Director Dorian Grilley has returned to work.  The Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota is a great organization who performs a lot of services for bike riders throughout the state.

Anytime that a rider is hit we are happy to see them return to work, and back to riding.  From the Bicycle Alliance website;

01/05/2011

” Following a three month recovery period Dorian Grilley, BikeMN’s executive director, returned to work officially December 1, 2010. Grilley was hit by a car while riding home from a meeting in St. Paul on the Gateway State Trail. He was crossing Hadley Avenue in Oakdale in a marked crosswalk. The car that hit him was passing the two marked driving lanes of cars stopped at the crosswalk on the right. The driver was ticketed for failure to yield to a crosswalk user and careless driving. Grilley spent three weeks in Regions Hospital.

Grilley’s injuries, sustained August 26, included cracked neck vertebrae, several cracked ribs, a broken left thumb, nerve damage to his left fingers and a right scapula that was broken in ten pieces. The scapula was rebuilt in early September. And, after a month in a neck and back brace the cracked vertebrae got worse and required surgery to fuse the three lower neck and two upper back vertebrae.

Grilley is still recovering from the surgeries and injuries. But, he was able to keep up with some work from home in October and November and return to work full-time December 1st. Grilley says, “this crash has multiplied my passion for bicycle advocacy, education and safety by several orders of magnitude”. He is also thankful for the BikeMN staff, volunteers and friends that helped keep BikeMN going and hosted another successful Saint Paul Classic during his hospital stay and recovery.

Grilley is looking forward to educating the new leaders at the Minnesota Capitol on the importance of bicycling to Minnesota, launching new BikeMN.org and BikeClassic.org web sites, the Minnesota Bike Summit on February 28th, the National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C. early March and the Bike Expos at the Mall of America and the Fairgrounds.”