Former Rocky Reporter Meadow Hospitalized

Former Rocky Mountain News reporter James B. Meadow was involved in a nasty bike accident yesterday and has been hospitalized with serious injuries. Ping Brad Bawmann of the Bawmann Group if you want more details.

UPDATE 2: James’ family has set up a Facebook page to offer updates on his condition: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54935367583&ref=mf

UPDATE 1: Here’s the email Brad sent to friends and colleagues:

Dear friends:

At this hour, the life of my friend James B. Meadow hangs in the balance.

Please join with me in praying for his miraculous recovery. The world will be less without his friendship, masterful musings and poignant prose about life as we know it and life as we might not have imagined it.

You may know James as an astounding writer for the now defunct Rocky Mountain News. For more than 25 years he has regaled the community with his superb story telling and provocative profiles. Unlike the modern version of junk-food journalism, James writes with the eloquence of five-star dining dazzling our palates and tempting our taste buds for more, more, more.

Early Friday afternoon, James crashed during a bicycle jaunt at Chattfield Reservoir. I suspect he was celebrating the completion of his hardscrabble work for renowned photographer John Fielder and their upcoming book about Colorado’s ranching royalty.

Moments before James jumped on his bike, he wanted to read to me one last version of how the Salazar family profile should end. After hearing both versions, I told James he was Picasso with words and to stop fretting the difference. Beautiful either way, I cared less what ending he settled upon but asked that he continue to write — even without his day job at the Rocky.

Then, around 5-o’clock in the evening, I received a call from the emergency department at Swedish Medical Center. Did I know whose phone this was they were using to call me from? Beats me, I said, you’re calling me. Back and forth we went..someone was hurt and they didn’t know who it was..with a little help from Verizon we discovered that it was James.

James had been in a terrible accident, twice revived and air-lifted to the trauma center. This morning James lies in critical and unstable condition at Swedish with tubes and monitors and chords wrapped around his bruised body. As family and friends gather we hope and pray for a miracle.

So I ask you, whether you know James or not, whether you’ve read his daily glimpses into human life or not, whether you are a faithful person or not, give me this one prayer for James. Heal his seemingly insurmountable injuries. Let his life continue, selfishly, so that we may read more of his mindful observations and raucous ruminations and that our friendship will live another day.

I do not know whether James will survive this day. The doctors advised us to expect less. I refuse to bow to their predictions hence my plea. Share this note. Say a prayer. Where there is love, there is hope.

– Brad