Syl and I came upon that crash site within 10 minutes after his off. The rider died in the medevac chopper but apparently of complications from the heart attack which he was probably in the throes of when he crashed. (rider had a long history of serious heart issues).
I don't mean to contradict any of your LD friends Dale, but where he offed was on a long straight at least 1/4 mile after the last of a series of downhill sweepers. It looked so bland that Sylvia immediately thought that the rider had either had some sort of attack or I thought he had just fallen asleep and run off the road into a foot of soft gravel (3 AM starts from Mexicali will do that for you).
No doubt in my mind that his chances of survival if it had only been from a straight-forward get-off would have been much better if ATGATT.
A couple that we met on a Harley pulling a trailer also had an accident just after the second checkpoint in Brookings, OR. A car in front of them signalled right, pulled to the right then (as the Harley started to pass) swung hard left right into them. The bike went down, the trailer flipped onto its roof, but they were able to put it all back together and finish - although the lady pillion was badly bruised. They were in full leathers and quality full-face helmets...
A lady M/C instructor from Alberta threw it away in a decreasing radius turn on Highway 36 near the CA coast. She slid away from her bike, but under the guardrails. The only thing that kept her from going down a 200 foot cliff was that her full-face helmet wedged under the bottom guardrail! Separated shoulder, broken collarbone and DNF for sure, but she'll live to ride another day, even if her bike probably won't.
So the first crash was the only fatality and the only one of the three not ATGATT - I'm just sayin...