I caused an old lady to fall on her property, injuring her and her dog because of my ignorance.

I usually like to ride my bike around the neighborhood in the late afternoon/evening. Sometimes it would begin getting dark, and I would still be riding my bike because I enjoy it. I ride on the sidewalk because it's safer, and I hate constantly having to be on the lookout for cars and such.

Yesterday, around late evening, it was pretty dark, and I was still riding around. I passed by one of my neighbor's house and saw her and her dog. Note that I do not know this lady at all. Don't think I've ever even seen her before. Anyway, they were both in the driveway of the house; the lady to my right and the dog to my left by the mailbox. What I didn't know (but should've) was that there was a leash - a black one, at that - attached to this dog and the lady was holding it. It was already dark, and the leash was black, so I didn't even see it at all!

Next thing I knew, I rode straight into the middle of this leash, which seemed to have came out of nowhere, going maybe 15-ish mph (24 kmh). I broke as fast as I could (thank God both the brakes on that bike work), but it was way too late. I ended up pulling both the old lady and her dog toward me as I broke. I heard the poor lady fall to the grass and yell "Ow!" because she never let go of the leash, and her dog swung around from the leash and ended up on my right (thinking back to it, maybe the dog didn't swing that far, but instead ran to my side after getting pulled so suddenly). In the span of about 6 or 7 seconds, I went from casually riding my bike to a leash being wrapped around it with the owner and the dog at both ends.

I instantly got off my bike and asked to help her up. She got up and thankfully wasn't very injured, nor mad at me. Her dog was growling a bit at me, which I understand, but it stopped after a few seconds. I had to get back to my bike to unwrap the leash. The lady said she didn't see me coming, otherwise she would've pulled back the leash.

I felt so bad, I probably apologized 5 or so times. This lady looked to be in her 60s, so a fall could really hurt her to my understanding. I should've known that whenever there's a dog and someone near it, there's most likely a leash between them. None of that would've happened had I just thought for a second. It makes me feel better that no one got very hurt and the lady was nice about it, but I just still feel really bad about all of this.

[Remorse]