NPR host Peter Sagal in hospital after cycle wreck

Published 8:40 pm Thursday, August 26, 2010

CHICAGO — For the past two days, Peter Sagal has been harassed by an invisible dwarf. Metaphorically, of course.

Sagal, a resident of Oak Park, Ill., and host of NPR’s “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me,” was taking a casual bike ride through the Chicago suburbs Wednesday when he had an unfortunate showdown with a hatchback at an intersection. The bike, and Sagal, lost.

The radio host was injured and brought to an undisclosed hospital, where he remains. The injuries appeared to be minor, but he is still waiting for additional tests.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m being hit by a car,’ because it’s the kind of thing you hear about,” Sagal said in a phone interview from the hospital. “It’s like, ‘Wow, so this is happening.”’

Sagal maintained a sense of humor while describing the incident in a blog post. Shortly after, fans sent him well wishes via Facebook and Twitter.

“That’s one of the great things about technology,” he said, adding that he is feeling better since the accident.

He was approaching an intersection while riding his bike about 10 miles from his Oak Park home. He saw the hatchback, but the driver never saw him.

“I had time to yell ‘STOP, STOP, STOP!’ but not to brake, and she never saw me,” he wrote.

The two collided and a bystander called paramedics.

“Then I tried to sit up and an invisible angry dwarf with a knife stabbed me in the back,” Sagal blogged. “So I enjoyed a relaxing scream and lay back down, carefully, and they put me on the backboard with the neck brace and put me in the ambulance and I stared at a series of changing ceilings until I got the emergency room at a nearby hospital.”

His helmet cracked, but his head didn’t. The bike, meanwhile, is still being held by police. Its condition is unknown.

“This morning I felt a little better … the invisible dwarf is just phoning it in,” Sagal wrote on the blog. “Sure, he’ll stab me, that’s his job, he’s happy to have the work, but his heart is no longer in it. I’m told that this is just a bad contusion, a deep bruise, etc., and yes, it does hurt that much, and it does get better.”

Thursday’s taping of “Wait, Wait” was not affected, as Sagal is on vacation and wasn’t going to host the show anyway. Senior Producer Mike Danforth said mishaps during scheduled time off aren’t exactly uncommon.

“He times his accidents pretty well,” he said.

Sagal said he plans to be back on the air after his vacation.

“I will not be missing from the radio for longer than I was supposed to be,” he said.