Wham, Bam, No thank you Mam

Ok, I have a mishap story. About 36 years ago when I was young and dumb. I just drove 7 hours from Texas to Arkansas to my grandmothers house hauling my Yamaha 125 MX in the bed of a 74 Ranchero. As soon as I pulled up to the house, I immediately unloaded my bike. Crank it up and drove to end of her gravel driveway to the hwy she lived off on. I putted through the ditch and into yard heading back towards the house on the left side of driveway in 1st gear. Oh and did I mention I wasn't wearing a helmet. When I drove by a bird feeder, I didn't see the steel cloths line wire that was attached to the feeder and the the other end to a tree. The wire caught me right across the mouth Immediately being removed from the bike to the ground. I sheared the right front top tooth and left a burn mark from my mouth to the edge of my right ear. I was there for a week with my injury. When I returned home, I sold the bike to my brother and riding gear. I only started riding again in 2011. I wear a helmet 99 percent of the time now. I avoid putting through anyone's yard without a helmet on.

Looks like we finally got the ball rolling so I'll tell you a horrendous story. This is one of two very bad accidents I've had.

Hadn't been back from Nam but about 2 years and I was in to off road riding. I also rode my 175 Yamaha to school,.....all through the year.
I was going to a friends house one afternoon, beautiful summer day and not a care in the world, life was good. That all changed in a microsecond.

Traveling East bound a truck (westbound) turned in front of me. I had absolutely no where to go and no time to get there even if I did. The wreck was from out of no where. I saw it coming (in a flash)and had absolutely no alternative except to jump off my machine and hopefully clear the hood of the truck. I leaped from the pegs of my bike and hit the windshield. My motorcycle hit the right front quarter panel of the truck and my right leg was caught between the two.
When all the spinning and tumbling stopped I was laying there in the road impaled with the left handlebar stuck in my left armpit.
A pedestrian ran over and cut off my machine and lifted me off the handlebar and laid me on my back.
I looked down and my right leg took a 90 degree turn at the knee. I tried to straighten it out but nothing worked. I saw a stream of blood running down the street and followed it back to the point of origination. My left side had bones exposed. "Oh my gosh, I'm hurt, hurt bad !" I felt no pain at this point and was trying to regroup at what had just happened.
People were gathering around and gawking at me.
It just so happened the wreck was right in front of Baptist Hospital. The emergency room was right around back about 150 feet away. I told myself, "OK buddy you've had a bad wreck, just stay calm and don't go into shock, you'll be in the emergency room in a few minutes and all will be OK."

A nurse had appeared kneeling at my side and was wiping the blood from my face. She lifted my head and chest and cradled it in her lap and in doing so one of the broken ribs punctured my lung. I started gasping for air and about that time a tidal wave of pain rushed up my right leg and hit me square in the head. I blacked out. I came back to consciousness in the same position and no ambulance was there yet. "Where's the friggin ambulance?" "Will someone please take me around to the back of this hospital to the emergency room!".
Not a soul would touch me, not even the doctors that had appeared during by brief period of being unconscious. Finally an ambulance appeared and lifted me to a gurney, I blacked out again. I finally got to the emergency room after waiting over 20 minutes on an ambulance (it's a wonder I didn't die waiting on it).
My clothes were cut off me and I had a good look at the whole picture. I wasn't pretty. A nice stiff shot of morphine and I woke up in the Intensive Care Unit a couple days later. I had undergone several surgeries to save my leg. After a few days in ICU I kinda came around to brief periods of consciousness and started looking around me and counted 6 victims in the same area with me. It was a spooky looking place with all the oscilloscopes and beepers going off and IV bags hanging everywhere with all these tubes going in out of people..... and many of them were in me.

Anyway,.......I survived. I still have 9 pins in my right leg and it's about 2 inches shorter than my left leg. My right foot is turned 45 degrees farther to the right. I was in a half body cast for 100 days and pretty much had to learn to walk all over again. I had broken every bone in my right leg and 4 ribs. Punctured my lung, busted my spleen and fractured my back. I was a mess.
After leaving ICU and being in a room I inquired about the others that were in the ICU with me at that time. I discovered that of the 7 people that were in the ICU (including me) 6 were motorcycle wreck victims and 1 was a gun shot wound.
I quit riding motorcycles.

BUT......I started riding ATV's. Now there is another disaster story to be told!

harleyhoonigan said:

Good story, at least you didn't get wiped out.
Being on a bike you learn to observe everything while being so vulnerable out in the open

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Absolutely true which is why you have to always ride expecting the unexpected like some idiot not seeing you and turning in front of you. With experience eventually you gain the ability to constantly update what you would do as the situation changes. For example with an on-coming vehicle would you brake and possible swerve to go behind it or accellerate to go in front of it or whatever. It is a dynamic situation that changes as the distance closes and with experience you gain the knowledge of what the best possible evasive action you can take.


What is unforgiveable, and what really gets an inexperienced rider into trouble, is the failure to observe, recognize and constantly update your reactive actions related to the potential threat.


In the motorcycle rider safety course they teach you to make eye contact but even that worries me. I'm still not sure that they see me even then and I'm always prepared for them doing something very stupid like trying to kill me. It has become second nature so it's not something I even think about nor does it in anyway detract from my riding experience. It's just something I do and it's worked for many years (knock on wood).