9-1-1's Wild Windshield Plot Actually Happened To A Poor Cyclist

9-1-1 season 3 bobby fox
(Image credit: Fox)

9-1-1 never fails to deliver calls packed with heart-pumping action, and viewers sometimes have to suspend their disbelief to go along for the ride with some of the wilder ones. The October 28 episode featured one emergency that had some viewers calling shenanigans more than usual, thanks to the case of a driver crashing into a cyclist and then not noticing the cyclist lodged in her windshield for hours.

When one viewer took to Twitter to argue that this case went too far to believe, 9-1-1's Oliver Stark stepped in with a correction:

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Oliver Stark, who plays the accident-prone Buck on 9-1-1 and was in the thick of the incident at the end of the October 28 episode when the cyclist was finally rescued, didn't elaborate on the true story. Notably, the driver in the episode left the guy in her windshield for hours due to a head injury she sustained in the crash; the true story is different on that front.

In 2014, a 56-year-old Wisconsin newspaper carrier by the name of Steve Gove was struck by a car while on his three-wheeled delivery bike, according to USA Today, while wearing a neon reflective vest and with his front and rear flashers on. Fortunately in this case, the victim hadn't been too grievously injured that he couldn't help himself when the driver didn't respond after striking him and lodging him in the windshield.

The driver, who would later face preliminary charges for suspicion of drunk driving, suspicion of a hit-and-run causing injury, and suspicion of failing to render aid, reportedly didn't notice Steve Gove in the windshield until he arrived home, then locked the car doors and went inside. Gove was able to pull himself into the car and then get out, ultimately surviving relatively minor injuries.

Both driver and cyclist survived on 9-1-1 as well, although the TV cyclist definitely wasn't able to just pull himself to safety and walk to get help. While he was conscious and moving for part of the time, he would have died if not for the timely arrival of Buck, recently restored to active duty, who stopped the car. Everybody lived, and Buck's heroics convinced Bobby that he was ready to get back into the thick of the action, and the bad blood over the lawsuit seems to be more or less gone.

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There is still the question of whether Buck is doing the right thing by jumping back into the heroics. In the same move that saw him save the lives of the cyclist and the driver, Buck sustained an injury to his arm that could have been quite serious due to his blood thinners. Luckily, the scratches weren't deep, and he was bandaged up at the hospital with seemingly no long term effects... this time. Will that be the case the next time something goes wrong?

We'll have to wait and see. New episodes of 9-1-1 air Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.

Laura Hurley
Senior Content Producer

Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).