'LUCKY TO BE ALIVE" CHEF WALTER MANZKE SUFFERS SERIOUS INJURIES AFTER BEING HIT BY A CAR ON PICO

Shortly before noon last Wednesday, renowned L.A. chef Walter Manzke parked his car in front of his soon-to-open bistro Bicyclette on Pico Boulevard near Century City.

What happened next he doesn’t remember. He’s lucky he doesn’t. If he did, he would have a horrible memory played over and over in his mind.  As it is, both Walter and his wife Margarita – as well as friends, doctors and bystanders – agree he is lucky to be alive.

A wayward car struck him brutally as he walked from his car to the sidewalk of the upcoming Bicyclette, (at the old Sotto site.) The front of car struck his body which smashed into the windshield which rocketed him to the sidewalk where he landed. The driver stopped.

Waiting for him on the sidewalk was chef Guillaume Guedj of the two -star Passage 53 in Paris, who rushed to him. “Guillaume thought he was dead,” said Melissa Koujakian, the GM of Manzke’s flagship restaurant, Republique. Covered in Walter’s blood, Guedj called 911.

Shortly after, Melissa got a phone call and got to Walter’s wife legendary pastry chef Margarita Manzke, (of oatmeal raisin cookie fame ) The two immediately  drove to Cedars Sinai Medical Center.

Walter had suffered collapsed lungs, several crushed ribs, a broken collarbone head and face injuries.

Twenty hours later, Walter woke up. “I had no idea what happened,” said Walter, who was transferred out of ICU Sunday night.

 Walter Manzke said he had mixed feelings about the female driver who hit him.

 “On one hand I feel happy she didn’t kill me, but on the other what if I had my wife or my children with me and she hit them?”

 Still, Walter was in good spirits when this reporter visited him Monday. He even joked “If you came here hoping to get some of my wife’s oatmeal raisin cookies you’re out of luck. They’re all gone. The nurses got them.”