Clothesline Carp Trap

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you were playing a giant carp across from a bike path and a biker ran into your outstretched fly line as you were playing the fish?  Apparently a concussion, a broken pelvis, and other injuries.  You read this right.  A guy going for a pleasant bike ride along the South Platte was inadvertently clotheslined by a flyfisherman.  Who can't appreciate that irony?  You have to wonder if the fish in question saw the cyclist coming and wanted to exact his revenge on humans for jabbing a hook in his lip.

EMT's initially thought kids set up a clothesline across the trail as a booby trap.  By the sound of things a flyfisherman later confessed to the accident, and all was well aside from the broken bones which were sustained by the biker.  Three questions that immediately come to mind that weren't addressed in the reported story by channel 9, other than was the guy on the bike ok were: what was the fisherman using, how big was the fish, and did he land it?  All kidding aside it must have been one serious fish if the guy playing it was running across bike trails to land it.  

According to the story, the gentleman on the bike just grazed the fly line and wasn't completely "clotheslined" by it, but took his hands off the bars as a reaction and then crashed.  I can't imagine what was going through the fisherman's mind as these events unfolded.  One minute your playing a giant fish and the next you're needed to provide medical assistance to a guy you just crashed with a fly line booby trap.  Do you finish landing the fish?  In a complete moment of ironic fate such as this where two men participating in two completely different outdoor activities clash, how do you handle this situation?  

For some reason I keep thinking about my recent First Aid class.  On my list of things to do as a First Aid trained flyfishing guide are to, make sure the area is safe and clear, followed by sending someone for the first aid kit, and to call 911, etc.  Nowhere on that list did our CPR instructor mention as a step to first land the fish.  Of course I'm only kidding and making light of a serious and ironic situation, and thankfully the guy on the bike wasn't killed or hurt a lot worse than he was.  We will live our entire lives and probably never hear a cautionary story of urban sports such as this again.  For more on this from channel 9 including a video of the "scene of the crime" click here.              

Thanks for reading and tight lines!  No pun intended...