TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — In what organizers called an “unexpected incident,” a cyclist in the El Tour de Tucson came face-to-face with one of the Southwest’s most resilient desert animals. The crash occurred last Saturday as the rider descended a rural stretch of road southeast of Tucson.
The collision happened at roughly 9:12 a.m. at the intersection of Colossal Cave Road and Camino Loma Alta. The rider, Danny Garcia, had just ascended the climb known locally as “Pistol Hill” when a baby javelina leapt into his path.
“I didn’t have a chance to really get out of the way," Garcia explained. "I remember hitting the brakes… Then I hit it, and my wheel went to the left, and I remember falling over my right hand side.”
Garcia reported blacking out briefly after the crash.
“My mind wasn’t 100% there," he said. "It was a little bit foggy, but it didn’t hit me that this was a really bad accident,” he said.
He later realized his phone was destroyed and his car keys lost in the collision. His wife, Lindsey Garcia, said she felt relief when he called. She and the couple's children had been waiting to cheer Danny on when he rode through their hometown of Sahuarita.
“He said I’m alright! I knew he would try to play it off. But he was alive, he wasn’t in an ambulance,” she recalled.
Medical professionals cleared Garcia of serious injuries, though his helmet displayed a large crack. “I did crash before, and I cracked my helmet. I cracked this helmet too, I still have it, it’s a pretty big crack. But no, nothing this wild, like a javelina hitting me or anything,” he said.
Garcia added that he felt blessed to make through the collision relatively unscathed. “It definitely made me appreciate more what happened to me Because a lot of people are very unlucky and fare far worse than I did,” he said.
As for the javelina, Garcia said he did not spot the animal after the crash. “There was no javelina on the road when I got up, so I’m assuming he ran off to live his life…”
Garcia says he plans to keep riding, albeit with a new story to tell: one of survival, desert wildlife and the unlikeliest of crashes on race day.
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Eddie Celaya is a multimedia journalist at KGUN 9. Born in Tucson and raised in the Phoenix area, Eddie is a life-long Arizonan and graduate of the University of Arizona who loves the desert and mountains and hates the cold. Previously, Eddie worked in print media at the Arizona Daily Star. Share your story ideas with Eddie at edward.celaya@kgun9.com, or by connecting on Facebook or Instagram.
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