When we worked at Keystone I worked the day shift and Mark worked room service – which was random days/evenings/nights. Often times we didn’t see each other very often.
One Wednesday afternoon I got back to our place 
and there was a message on the machine. I don’t recall if that was unusual or not. However, once I pressed play – what was possibly mundane turned crazy instantly.
A woman’s voice said, “This is Meredith from the Frisco Clinic. We’ve got your friend Mark and are sending him to a hospital in Denver. He wanted me to call.”
That was it.
What? Huh? Say that again?
So I called the Frisco Clinic and was told that due to the HIPPPPPPPAAA Laws, they couldn’t give me any information. But they did insist they felt badly about not telling me anything.
So I did what any normal human being would do. I drove over to the Frisco Clinic and convinced them (with my incessant charm, that is) that they should tell me what happened and where he is. Well I’m not sure they went for the charm part, but they did say he had a bike accident and told me what hospital they sent him too.
So for an hour, on my drive to Denver, I could just guess what happened. I had no real idea of whether his injuries were life threatening or not, but did think they must be bad to send him by ambulance to a hospital one hour away.
Eventually I found the hospital, accidentally locked the keys in the car and went in search of Mark. (Of course I didn’t know I’d locked the keys in the car till later).
Apparently, Mark who is one crazy bastard, went mountain biking down Keystone mountain – likely as fast as he could go. He made it all the way to the bottom of the hill then just as he was exiting the mountain trail and onto the sidewalk, he hit a bump which threw him over the handlebars and into the street.
A passerby stopped just as he’d stood up and asked him for directions to something – which Mark gave them. They then began to drive away when they must have realized that his completely bloodied face, glassy eyes and blank stare probably meant he was in trouble. (Hmm. . . they actually drove away at first. . .)
They couriered him down the street to the fire station where his journey to Denver began.
In the end, he survived the crash and healed up quite nicely. We got back into the car after resolving the locked keys problem- and enjoyed a nice hour long trip back to Keystone. To this day (that was 1995), I’m not sure we ever got his bike back.
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