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Adam Lehman in car accident in London, recovering

Note: This blog post is from 2008. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
I just heard news of this on a private list and when searching could find only one entry with confirmation and a few details, so I wanted to pass the news along, in case others hadn't heard. Thankfully, it ends on a relatively encouraging note, considering the circumstances.

According to Mark Drew, who wrote the entry above, Adobe ColdFusion evangelist Adam Lehman was hit by a car Friday night in London, suffering a broken arm and leg. Mark went with him to the hospital, and reported that he'd had surgery on the arm and was due to have it today for the leg.

Mark added, "Hopefully he will be out in a week or two. Even through this, he has managed to Twitter and update his status. So he is doing OK, if a little out of it due to the pain killers."

That's encouraging news and of course we all wish Adam a speedy recovery.

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Comments
Hey Adam,

(If you read this) I hope everything is really ok and wish you the speediest recovery.

I was looking forward to our meeting on Wednesday in Munich... I guess that's one we'll have to put on ice!!!

Take it easy + All the best,
Darren

Ps. A big get well from all the guys on the FusionReactor team...
It is important to be aware when visiting a country whose driving rules are the opposite of your own country, you need to constantly remind yourself of the differences and take the opposite action of what you are used to before crossing the road.
# Posted By Chris Velevitch | 9/29/08 9:21 PM
Hey Chris, the thought crossed my mind that it may have been while crossing the street, as it's indeed a common problem for Americans in the UK, but Mark doesn't indicate that in his blog entry, so I don't know that we should assume that was it.

The good news, for Americans in London, at least, is that they do put out a LOT of signage on the ground and at crossings to warn us to look the opposite way we're used to.
They do that here in Australia as well. They started appearing around the time of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. However, whenever I visit the US, I have to be constantly aware when crossing the street.
# Posted By Chris Velevitch | 9/29/08 10:20 PM
That's good to hear, Chris. I lived in Australia 13 years ago and they didn't have the signs then. :-) Not even in Canberra, where lots of us Americans worked supporting the federal government. Of course, Canberra's pretty low-key traffic-wise (not quite a backwater as some Aussie's would insist!), so I didn't have trouble there, but on visiting Sydney and Melbourne, yeah. :-)

Really, the more difficult thing about the "opposite side of the road" thing, for me at least (even in the ACT), was getting into the wrong side of the car. Doh! So embarassing. Or while driving looking up to see the rear view to find yourself looking out the window instead. :-) It was funny how many weeks it took to break those habits.

Even then, there were scary remnants of the problem when I returned home (or came back), when a few months after leaving one or the other I'd find myself turning onto a street with no signs or cars to give me a cue, and I'd freak for a moment thinking, "crap, which side am I supposed to be on?!" I actually was mistaken a few times both here and there, but fortunately was always able to recover before getting into trouble.

But all this of course is not meant to take away from Adam's situation, nor to insinuate at all that any of it was a factor in his accident. Again, we do wish him well.
@Adam,
hope you get well soon. And don't think I'll let you off the hook regarding a a UG meeting. ;-)

@Darren
hope to see you in Munich tonight.. we got Josh Adams as replacement speaker for Adam.

@Charlie
May I kindly remind you that this (the British driving on the 'wrong' side of the street) is not a problem just for the Americans... actually it is a problem for visitors from like 90% of the rest of the world ;-))
# Posted By Chris | 9/30/08 1:49 AM
Sorry Chris, I thought of that after sending. That said, I was writing both about *an* American (Adam) and *as* an American (myself), so I hope I might be forgiven the slip. Still, I should keep in mind always that I have readers from the world over. No offense was intended (yes, I saw the smiley face. Just covering bases.)

Then again, it's certainly more than just the UK that drives on the opposite side (I never said "wrong", but I understand the sensitivity to it being called that often). I've enjoyed driving on the normal side down your Autobahn. :-)

But really it's less than "like 90%" of the world that drives on the right, though of course it depends on how you count them. For those interested, here's an interesting site (can't confirm its sources) that indicates that 74 countries drive on the left, vs 166 that drive on the right (http://tinyurl.com/3...).

Naturally, one may say, "yeah, but if those are small countries then it still may be only a small percent of the world population". Well, they show a breakdown by population, too (http://tinyurl.com/4...). It shows that fully 34% of the world population drives on the left. Interesting.

Then I found this map which shows the countries, and it would seem by land mass that it may be more like the 10-20% that drive on the left, as Chris asserted.

Taking it to an extreme, :-), this page (http://www.brianluca...) breaks it down by actual paved roads, and it's back to about 30% driving on the left.

Anyway, the bottom line, FWIW, is that the confusion of driving on the opposite side would clearly affect a lot of people, in either direction, in lots of the world, and that was the main point Chris was making, I think. It's not just a US/UK thing. 'Nuff said. :-) Let's all get back to work, except for Adam, who we hope is resting comfortably.

PS Glad to hear that Josh is coming on in Adam's place. I had heard it may be possible but didn't want to say anything until it was confirmed. For those who don't know, Josh came on board to Adobe in February to step in (as CF SE) when Adam stepped up to take Ben's role of CF Evangelist (when Ben moved to be over all Adobe evangelists.) So I'm sure Josh will do a great job stepping in even on short notice to substitute for Adam in this situation.
There were problems rendering 2 of the URLs I offered in that last comment, so I've corrected the comment to use TinyURLs for them instead.

Also, I mistakenly said, 'But really it's less than "like 90%" of the world that drives on the left', when I meant to say "right". I was torn at first on whether to write from the 10% or the 90% perspective,and just slipped in correcting that sentence during my editing.

I've corrected both of those for future readers, but since some may get an email notification of new comments, I wanted them to see this if it might catch them before replying about the problems. Always dicey, if they don't look ahead to later comments/notifications before replying. :-)
Get well soon!
# Posted By Ben Lagua | 9/30/08 12:30 PM
Hey, as long as we were discussing Josh Adams and I was introducing him to those who may not yet have met him, I just got notice that he's the interviewee on this week's CFConversations podcast (30 minutes):

http://www.cfconvers...
wish you the best Adam, hope you get better soon.
@Adam - glad to hear you are getting better, best of luck with the recovery.

@Charlie - thanks for the update.

Davo
# Posted By David O Malley | 9/30/08 1:35 PM
Hi adam,

If you are reading this ... Get well soon Pal.

GodSpeed
@Charlie,

man, where do you always find those statistics? Anyway, one is missing... the percentage of people who visit countries where they drive on the other side of the road. ;-)

Actually, I once heard that the reason for driving on the left or right side of the road lies in inland water transportation... where it played a big role in "ancient" times, people drive on the left side nowadays. (If I remember correctly.)

Regarding the CFUG meetings... Claude Englebert (European CF SE) had Adam on the phone during the meeting yesterday and Adam said he'd be doing another European tour once he has recovered.

Josh did a good job in spite of being terribly jet lagged and unprepared (no offense, he simply had not had time for preparation). He will take over the Zurich meeting on Thursday as well.
# Posted By Chris | 10/1/08 3:31 AM
Adam is indeed doing well (apart, perhaps from English hospital food which is a terror that will last with him long after he's forgotten the accident). He has had successful surgery on both the leg and shoulder and when I saw him at the hospital yesterday he was doing very well and there was talk of him being able to fly home in a few days.

Mark Drew has been really amazing - helping out with everything from sorting out Adams luggage to going on pie runs (man cannot live on NHS food alone :-) ).

And sad to say,. Adam did indeed "pull an American" and look the wrong way/ But to be fair I was born in the UK, lived there over 20 years and visit often and I've still had a couple of close calls on my trips over here - it's easy to do.
To be honest, its easy to do living here... too many close calls. Unfortunately for Adam, this was what I like to call a "near miss" i.e. a hit.
Wow, so it he did "pull an American". Yikes, Adam, so sorry to hear that.

@Chris, as for the statistics, I just did a quick Google search and found a few sites that had the info. The 2 tinyurls actually point to the same page, but different anchors within it. Sadly, they used spaces in their names and the blogcfc tool for showing URLs as links didn't like that--even with %20 used for the space, which was odd. I even tried changing it to +. but the web server wouldn't process it the same, which I thought even more odd.

Anyway, I see that I forgot to include the link to the graph I mentioned, showing the world map and who drove on what side. One is available here: http://en.wikipedia....:Countries_driving_on_the_left_or_right.svg

In fact, wikipedia has an entire entry on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.... In fact, it offers a very interesting couple of stories of the history of why it may have started on the right, then moved to the left. Both involve horses, though it indicates that citations are needed.

Anyway, Chris, it's funny that you mention I missed one: "the percentage of people who visit countries where they drive on the other side of the road". I actually wondered about that, but didn't see it readily, and like I said, it felt like it was time to move on. :-)

Sorry to hear that Josh's fill-in may not have gone as well, but it was pretty dire circumstances and if I know Josh, he gave it all he could.

@Peter and Mark, thanks so much for the updates "from the scene". It's great to hear the straight scoop, and especially good to hear encouraging news on his prognosis and possible release.

And good on ya', Mark, for playing such an excellent nursemaid. :-) Just kidding. You're being a real friend, and the community thanks you for your being there, just as they do for the work on CFeclipse--well, at least those who use it. :-)

Three cheers for Mark: hip hip hooray...
Well Adam had a few drinks in the hours earlier. He Twittered as much. Drink and traffic are not good bed fellows no matter what city you live in or visit.

Thankfully Adam was pretty lucky - albeit yes serious injuries - but he should make a full recovery. We all love him of course and wish him the best. I;m gonna save up for a cool XBox 360 game (something coming soon - so many to choose from) and surprise him!

Thanks to Mark Drew for looking after him but what would you expect of a friend? Get well soon Adam! And see you on XBox Live so I can kick your butt at whatever cool game I end up buying two copies of.
I should also point out that it is really the responsibility of the car driver to not hit pedestrians. This is the case in Oz and should be the same elsewhere. As Adam discovered it hurts to be hit by a car (I know from personal experience). All you drivers out there - give way to pedestrians!!! (please)
Get well soon! Let us know when Adobe releases a ColdFusion patch for broken limbs ;-)
# Posted By Jon Hallenberg | 10/8/08 1:11 PM
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