nusman68
Well-known member
SO, my wife and I decided to take off for a little 3 day trip to the hill country, each on our own bikes. (gotta take advantage of the time, as our 9 year old was visiting his big sister on spring break) We had booked a room in a bed & breakfast in Fredricksburg, about 350 miles west. We took off, taking as many back roads as possible to take advantage of the great weather and rural scenery. About 100 miles out, we were going down (yet another) back county road. This particular road was pavement, pretty beaten up, about a lane and-a-half wide; nothing but cow pastures and rusty mailboxes. We'd been on it before, and I recalled it had some tight turns on it. We're going along, making occasional comments via our radios; Susan's about 100 yds behind me. I catch the first set of turns, give her a verbal reminder about how tight the turn is; (she's been riding a couple of yrs now, but I still look out for her..yeah, I know...what a guy, right?) no sweat. A tight 'S' turn comes up. One more verbal reminder...I go through, go over a small rise, roll off the throttle expecting to see her coming up behind me. Instead I hear "I'm off the road!" in my helmet.
Not good...my heart sank...NOT what I expected or wanted to hear. I whipped it around, went back over the little rise..she's off the road, bike's in the low sand & dirt ditch, left side of it laying in a barbed wire fence at about a 45 deg angle, front wheel embedded; she's on her butt, got her back against the front wheel, right arm tangled in the barbed wire, stuck. I go into paramedic mode and start assessing her. I get her arm untangled and she gets out of the ditch...further assessment reveals pain to the left ankle; okay...wow, if she gets out of this with just a sprained ankle, that would be.......then I open her jacket, damn! Lacerations to her throat from the barbed wire!...she didn't even realize it what with the adrenaline level at that point. Bleeding looks venous...okay nothing arterial, some good news; definitely gonna have to be sutured however; I get her bandaged up. Now I'm trying to raise 911 on my cell with no signal strength, checking out the map for my exact location. I get through, and (thanks to an old mailman going by), was able to give highly accurate location information. The local EMS crew arrives and decides to life-flight her as a precaution, based on the location of the injury (not surprising) in addition to the fact that we were 1 hour's drive time from a hospital. Suffice to say Susan was not happy to hear all this, but she knew it was for the best.
We get her taken care of, helicopter takes off for Brackenridge Hospital in Austin. The local rancher (whose property we were going by) and his wife came over. These people were the epitome of good samaritans; they gave me their cell phone to use, brought me water, stored my wife's riding gear in addition to the luggage off the bike. Furthermore, they helped me get the bike out of the ditch and offered to secure it as well; the tow truck showed up, so that was taken care of (AMA MO-Tow really works..sorry I had to find out).
I'm off to Austin, solo...now my thoughts start the what-if? game...I get there...quick.
All's well, I arrive to find her in stable condition with a hairline fracture to the left leg (yeah near the ankle) and the doctor finishing his immaculate suturing job after CAT scanning to rule out any nicked blood vessels, etc...she ends up with...18? stitches.
We finally get a chance to analyze what happened...she told me she simply got into the second half of the S-turn too fast, (they were near 90 degrees, with the first & second half of the 'S' spaced out a bit) went wide (despite correction maneuvers) and went off the left side of the pavement. There was a drop off there, and we later determined this caused a highway peg to catch, making the bike flip back to the opposite side; in the process this high-sided her into the barbed wire. The windshield (as we later saw) obviously blocked some of the wire; but despite that and having a full face helmet, armored Cortech 3/4 length jacket, armored pants, boots, gloves, etc some managed to snake under the helmet and nail her. The gear paid off in a big way though, as the helmet protected her from facial & scalp lacs (the helmet is scratched all over) and the collar on the jacket appeared to act as a 'spacer', if you will, limiting the depth of the cuts; (there's a 'barbed wire indentation' on the collar of the jacket). The good news, of course, is that the lacerations missed the major blood vessels.
After all was said and done, I felt like she was lucky to escape more serious injury. Had it not been for all the gear, I am confident she would have ended up with many more lacerations, or even an arterial laceration and bled to death on the scene. Let this episode be another :good: for protective riding apparel. She was kept overnight as a precaution and was released the next morning.
I got her home; she's in a walking boot for the leg and gets to enjoy looking at her stitched up neck; now she's depressed about 'ruining' our weekend and damaging the bike. She's also worried how well the scars will heal...(typical woman stuff...apologies in advance to our female members) I keep reassuring her, (hey, guys dig scars too) and my brother and I already have the bike running again; just cosmetic damage, parts on the way.
So, everybody, do me a favor and send a reply on her behalf. She knows how twisted (oops, I mean caring) all of you are as she hears me speak about the site often. Thanks in advance.
Regards
Brad
***Graphic pic below: (neck injury) Don't scroll down if you don't want to see it.****
Neck injury: I'm thinking a chain mail neck gator for future rides....
Jacket pic, I'm pointing at the indentation from the barbed wire...a little hard to see in the photo:
Helmet, formerly 'scratch free'; better the helmet than your head!
Scratches on front:
Not good...my heart sank...NOT what I expected or wanted to hear. I whipped it around, went back over the little rise..she's off the road, bike's in the low sand & dirt ditch, left side of it laying in a barbed wire fence at about a 45 deg angle, front wheel embedded; she's on her butt, got her back against the front wheel, right arm tangled in the barbed wire, stuck. I go into paramedic mode and start assessing her. I get her arm untangled and she gets out of the ditch...further assessment reveals pain to the left ankle; okay...wow, if she gets out of this with just a sprained ankle, that would be.......then I open her jacket, damn! Lacerations to her throat from the barbed wire!...she didn't even realize it what with the adrenaline level at that point. Bleeding looks venous...okay nothing arterial, some good news; definitely gonna have to be sutured however; I get her bandaged up. Now I'm trying to raise 911 on my cell with no signal strength, checking out the map for my exact location. I get through, and (thanks to an old mailman going by), was able to give highly accurate location information. The local EMS crew arrives and decides to life-flight her as a precaution, based on the location of the injury (not surprising) in addition to the fact that we were 1 hour's drive time from a hospital. Suffice to say Susan was not happy to hear all this, but she knew it was for the best.
We get her taken care of, helicopter takes off for Brackenridge Hospital in Austin. The local rancher (whose property we were going by) and his wife came over. These people were the epitome of good samaritans; they gave me their cell phone to use, brought me water, stored my wife's riding gear in addition to the luggage off the bike. Furthermore, they helped me get the bike out of the ditch and offered to secure it as well; the tow truck showed up, so that was taken care of (AMA MO-Tow really works..sorry I had to find out).
I'm off to Austin, solo...now my thoughts start the what-if? game...I get there...quick.
All's well, I arrive to find her in stable condition with a hairline fracture to the left leg (yeah near the ankle) and the doctor finishing his immaculate suturing job after CAT scanning to rule out any nicked blood vessels, etc...she ends up with...18? stitches.
We finally get a chance to analyze what happened...she told me she simply got into the second half of the S-turn too fast, (they were near 90 degrees, with the first & second half of the 'S' spaced out a bit) went wide (despite correction maneuvers) and went off the left side of the pavement. There was a drop off there, and we later determined this caused a highway peg to catch, making the bike flip back to the opposite side; in the process this high-sided her into the barbed wire. The windshield (as we later saw) obviously blocked some of the wire; but despite that and having a full face helmet, armored Cortech 3/4 length jacket, armored pants, boots, gloves, etc some managed to snake under the helmet and nail her. The gear paid off in a big way though, as the helmet protected her from facial & scalp lacs (the helmet is scratched all over) and the collar on the jacket appeared to act as a 'spacer', if you will, limiting the depth of the cuts; (there's a 'barbed wire indentation' on the collar of the jacket). The good news, of course, is that the lacerations missed the major blood vessels.
After all was said and done, I felt like she was lucky to escape more serious injury. Had it not been for all the gear, I am confident she would have ended up with many more lacerations, or even an arterial laceration and bled to death on the scene. Let this episode be another :good: for protective riding apparel. She was kept overnight as a precaution and was released the next morning.
I got her home; she's in a walking boot for the leg and gets to enjoy looking at her stitched up neck; now she's depressed about 'ruining' our weekend and damaging the bike. She's also worried how well the scars will heal...(typical woman stuff...apologies in advance to our female members) I keep reassuring her, (hey, guys dig scars too) and my brother and I already have the bike running again; just cosmetic damage, parts on the way.
So, everybody, do me a favor and send a reply on her behalf. She knows how twisted (oops, I mean caring) all of you are as she hears me speak about the site often. Thanks in advance.
Regards
Brad
***Graphic pic below: (neck injury) Don't scroll down if you don't want to see it.****
Neck injury: I'm thinking a chain mail neck gator for future rides....
Jacket pic, I'm pointing at the indentation from the barbed wire...a little hard to see in the photo:
Helmet, formerly 'scratch free'; better the helmet than your head!
Scratches on front:
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