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Bicyclist Hit With Drum Starts GoFundMe To Pay For Braces

By  Alisa Hauser and Kelly Bauer | October 10, 2017 9:15am 

 Trajan Vivens, 23, is asking for help raising money for his recovery after someone hit him with a drum.
Trajan Vivens, 23, is asking for help raising money for his recovery after someone hit him with a drum.
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Facebook and GoFundMe

WICKER PARK — A bicyclist who was conked in his head with a drum in a clash with a driver that was caught on video has started a GoFundMe to pay for his recovery.

The cyclist, Trajan Vivens, 23, was hit after he broke the back window of a van with a lock in an escalating dispute that started Sunday evening.

In a post on the fundraising site GoFundMe, Vivens wrote that he needs to repair his teeth, and his insurance will only cover a portion of the cost.

Vivens had raised $335 as of Tuesday morning but needs $4,000 to cover the costs of braces, he wrote.

"Due to a racist a------ smacking me upside the head with a drum, I am now in need of braces," Vivens wrote. "My insurance does not cover all of [that], and I only need $4,000 to cover the rest of the surgery.

"Help me get my face back, please."

Vivens said he was knocked off his bike by the van driver near Presence St. Mary's Hospital, 2233 W. Division St.

Vivens, a Pilsen resident, said he was leaving the hospital's emergency room after visiting a friend when he turned on Leavitt Street and was knocked off his bike by the van headed south.

"He clipped me as I was coming out of the hospital. I went up to him and told him that he clipped me," Vivens told DNAinfo Chicago. The driver then swore at him and used the n-word, he said.

"That term has a lot behind it. It was straight anger. That was what I was feeling," said Vivens.

The short video of the incident begins with the two arguing and cursing each other. Vivens can be heard calling the van driver the n-word, which, he said in the interview, "I used it back on him because I was angry."

The two separated, and after the driver got back into his van, Vivens ran up, broke the back window of the driver's van and ran to his bike.

In response to being called a racial slur, Vivens said, "I busted his window with my U-Lock."

On the video, the driver can be seen getting out of the driver's side front door, opening the van's hatch and removing what appears to be a drum. The driver runs after Vivens and hits him on the head from behind, knocking Vivens off his bike.

The video, which ends with the driver walking back to his van and returning the drum to the rear area of his vehicle, was posted on Facebook late Sunday and has received more than 4 million views.

Vivens said he went to the hospital after regaining consciousness and found that he had suffered a broken jaw, a split lip and a few loose teeth in the fight.

A police report of the incident was not immediately available. The assault occurred in the 1200 block of North Leavitt Street.

Vivens said he does not know who taped the incident.

A kitchen worker at a brewpub in Pilsen who bikes "all day every day," Vivens said he will need to take off some time from his job because of his injuries.

"I can't even speak. I can't even chew. I am stuck eating liquids for the next six months," he said.