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| My 2003 ST1300, before the accident |
serious accident, and the hard facts show that often times a rider will still wind up with a broken bone or
two or some other injury that sidelines them for a few days. Watch a few MotoGP or World Superbike races and see what I mean. Gear can't always save you from a broken bone when you hit the ground or when a bike lands on you, but it can protect you from having your skin shredded off your body.
We were heading east on Highway 31, and hadn't quite made it to Tyler Texas. With a wide open stretch of pavement, 3 lanes each direction, with a super wide middle turning lane, we were cruising along at about 70mph. We had the intercom open, and had been talking about work, and life, and ironically, about deer. A friend of ours had hit one a day or two before our trip, and was still in Brakenridge with a couple of broken ribs.
Around 830PM, I was in the far outside lane when I thought I saw something about an eighth of a
mile ahead of me on the far left, way over on the westbound side in the grass. It was probably another
deer, if it was anything at all.
The very next thing I remember is seeing the deer I hit as he seemed to materialize out of thin air. He
was in the turning lane, running for the woods on my right, heading directly in front of me. Time seems
to have become compressed at this point, and while I know things happened really fast the playback in
my head is kind of like bullet time in the Matrix.
Amy was looking over my right shoulder and didn't see the deer at all. I remember thinking about what
my options were, and I remember deciding that I needed to either try to stop or evade. Evading seemed
to be the better option. There was no way I'd be able to stop, not at that speed, while two up and
loaded with luggage for a trip, and the thought was that if I swerved hard left we might miss the deer. I
remember feeling the bike leaning and turning hard left before impact, and Amy does too.
This almost worked.
We hit somewhere along the back half of the deer. There was a really loud thwack and my world went
completely black as my headlights were both shattered. There was a huge amount of force applied to
the front wheel when we hit - we found out later that the left fork was bent, and the impact itself sent
the wheel pointing to the right side. This sent all the force of the impact up into the right handlebar, up
my arm, and into my shoulder which is still sore. With the front wheel swept out from under it, the bike
low sided on its left side and the next thing I remember is hearing the sound of the crash bars grinding
into the pavement.
We think my Amy came off about this time; she has a pretty decent bruise on her left hip and remembers sliding with the bike being nowhere near her. I was still holding on to the bars and sitting on
the seat, with my left leg and shoulder dragging on the ground. My left pants leg and left jacket sleeve
are both pretty beat, the jacket is actually melted through in some spots to the inner liner. I had no idea
the friction of sliding on the road could generate that much heat.
I remember thinking to myself, "it's down now, I may as well let go", and letting go of the bars. I came
off the seat and separated from the bike, which caught traction or snagged on the pavement for a
moment and then flipped up and over to the right side where it dragged for a bit longer. The bike came
to a stop somewhere around 250 feet down from where we first hit.
And that's more or less that. I wound up with bruised ribs, a spot of road rash where my right sleeve and
glove meet up, a sore right shoulder, and a sore left ankle. My left foot was actually pinned under the
bike for a bit, and became twisted pretty bad when I let go of the bike. My Wolverine work boots will be
getting replaced with reinforced and armored boots to help protect my feet better if something like this
ever happens again. Amy's jacket rode up a bit, and as a result she got a patch of road rash on her
stomach to go with her bruised ribs. We ached all over later that night, but this really was the extent of
our injuries.
Always wearing gear and a helmet is even more firmly planted in my head. Yes, I know wearing a helmet
is a choice, but the gouges in my wrecked helmet show me that it's a really easy choice for me to make.
Simply put, our riding gear was destroyed, but we were not.
We still have a little bit of residual pain here and there from the wreck, but nothing serious or requiring
a doctor's care. My left ankle is a bit sore, as are my right wrist and right shoulder, she still has some
tenderness in her chest if she sneezes or coughs really hard. We were lucky, yes, but to be in this good
of shape nine days after such a serious accident is a testament to the merits of being geared for the
slide, and neither of us is complaining.
