home: http://starling.ws/royal_star
by Ĝan Ŭesli Starling
copyright 2009
I crash the RSTD into the back of a suddenly U-turning car but walk away with only some road rash and sore muscles.
From the pictures it don't look like much. But Shawmut Hills Yamaha says the bike is totalled with $9K in damage from a bent frame, wheel, etc. Here's how I remember the crash. And I am very clear on it right up to the impact itself. Everything after is fuzzy until they load me into the ambulance and drop an oxygen mask on my face.
After turning south onto 120th north of Zeeland MI, I was going between 50 and 55 mph. I noted a smallish, red car quite some distance ahead slowing down, aparently to pull off onto the shoulder. It made that kind of S move you do when you're going to park on the shoulder. It was as much off the road as the narrow shoulder would allow, there being only a couple feet of gravel, then about as much grass before sloping down into a deep drainage ditch. I figured it would be fully off and fully stopped well before I should pass on the left. I figured to have 90% ore more of the lane to myself and was only concerned that they might open the driver's side door. So I was only keeping an eye out for that and preparing to give it a wider berthjust in case. I couldn't simply slip into the other lane because of an oncoming car.
Just when I figured the car on the shoulder should stop they instead swung back out as if their prior move were only the question-mark-shaped lead up for a full U turn not otherwise possible in such narrow confines. It was still some distance ahead, but at 50-ish MPH, not far enough for me to to complete a full stop. I have always held to a rule about situations like that. Don't just rely on the breaks. When an obsticle appears, go somewhere else that it's not going to be. On the few such occasions as I've known before there has been someplace else safer to go, to swerve left or right into an open space. And on this occasion I had sufficient time to choose. But there just weren't any such safer places.
The car direclty ahead was mostly on the road but also partly on the shoulder. I could see its driver's side as fully as I could the rear. There was another vehicle some little ways ahead, also on that same shoulder. I remember thinking this car ahead was pulling off to come to the parked car's aid for some reason. A third car was aproaching in the oncoming lane. So all I had going for me were brakes. They was almost time enough to stop. If only I'd had another few extra feet of space I think that I might have been able to stop. Or if the car directly ahead had accellerated just a bit more, then too I'd have had that extra space. Or if they had instead pulled back more fully onto the sholder, that too would have sufficed. But none of those happened.
I gave it a bit too much rear brake so that it locked up which wasting stopping power. I was afraid to give it any more front break because for fear lock up thus lose steering. As the distance closed I had only a choice of which part of the car I should hit. It thought it might not be much of a hit because I was slowing down pretty well. But the car was still positioned so that I could see its drivers side as well as the bumper. Which side to hit were my only choices unless I wanted to risk the ditch. It was a big, deep-looking ditch. I could just imagine the 800-lbs bike tumbling over me after we parted company. I didn't want that. If I hit the car's driver's side I'd glance off into the path of that oncoming car. So I chose the rear bumper which was mostly in the lane but still partly on the shoulder. I didn't have any thought beyond that. My primary wish was to not careen off the driver's side into the path of that oncoming car. I remember it all very well right up to the bump when my front tire hit the car's bumper.
Some time must have passed while I lay unconscious because the next thing I remember is a rescue guy, or maybe a cop, trying to dissuade me from standing up. I wasn't very much with it yet and stood up anyway. Bad idea. Soon as I did I got watery legs, almost, but not quite actually fainting. It was very like that time when I got choked out in Shobudo Jujuitsu class. The rescue/cop/whoever guy grabbed my head from the front while somebody else who I'd been unaware of caught my shoulders from behind to gently ease me back to the ground. Then they put me on a back board and loaded me into an ambulance. I was asked to recall what had happend. So I told them about the car on the shoulder which pulled out into the road again. I also remember somebody handing me the broken off chrome front brake lever which I held for a while before stuffing it into my right front jeans pocket.
They took me to North Ottawa Community Hospital on a back board and in a neck brace for a professional opinion of my status. I was still a fuzzy about events after the impact. I have a very clear imprint in my mind of the car before I actually hit. But all after then is in a fog until I get that oxygen hit. I felt banged some, sure. But otherwise not too bad. I have gotten somewhat worse just while practicing Tae Kwon Do. And that oxygen really made a huge difference. I gotta tell you: it's way, way better than coffee. (Wonder if I can trade in my coffee maker for a gas bottle and little plastic mask? Be great for meetings!) In the OR, several times people asked what had happend, and I told them about the car which was first on, then off of the shoulder. Much comment was made about my having worn a helmet. My oxigan mask removed, the OR tech poked me all over asking, "Does this hurt?" and also gave me a tetnus shot. A lady doctor came and went a couple of times doing similar. At some point I'd gotten all these electrodes glued to my chest with wires attached. But nobody was looking alarmed, or even hurried, and I felt not too bad. I got a blood pressure cuff put on a few times. The low reading was just a little bit too high at first, the OR tech said. But later it came down again.
The doctor pressed very hard for a CAT scan. She said it was because of how I'd gotten my bell rung and had been out of it for a while. I was at first inclined to refuse the $700 cost. But she was most persuasive, citing an annecdote which I might remember from the news not too long ago about a "subdural hematoma" or something like. I did remember it. This famous person had walked out of an OR, refusing treatment after taking a knock to the head and then later died. Thus reminded I agreed. The CAT scan took not long at all with wholly negative results. And hardly any time later they released me with directions toward the exit door. I signed papers and walked out.
I knew exactly where I was because I'd been to that very hospital not two weeks before. Terersa German from my TKD group was giving away her old treadmill after having gotten a new one. As a medical student she just wanted to clear the space in her garage. Said so in her profile on Facebook. So I had messaged her of my interest. Saturday or Sunday of two weeks past she'd put it into her GMC Jimmy and hauled it to where she had an AM shift, that very same hospital on Taylor Street in Grand Haven. I had met her there and seeing as how it would not fit in my car, she'd kindly delivered it to my apartment.
So when I stepped out through the OR sliding doors, limping slightly, I had only to take a look and orient myself on directions. I limped on around the building to Taylor and then East to US-31 with the idea to hitchhike home 20 miles south to Holland. That way I'd save a monsterous cab fair. I could have called to pester one of my workmates that they might come pick me up. But for them it would be a 40-mile round trip. So I decided to ride my thumb instead. I figued it would not take long but was mistaken. Either I'm a scary guy or everyone was in a big hurry that evening. I say so because it was most of an hour before somebody kindly stopped to give me a ride. It had gone from evening twilight to quite dark by then. I was standing on the grass in front of a closed-up mall in the full light of a nearby parking lot vapor lamp. On my left arm clutch a motorcycle hemet were the two plastic ID bracelets. My right arm of the extended thumb had an impressive white bandage. I was trying to keep a pleasant facial expression but it didn't help much. Several motorcycles with no second rider even passed me by, and me standing there, thumb out, bandaged, braceleted and holding a helmet. Maybe they all have really good eyesight and could read my slightly lunatic t-shirt, small white print on black cotton: "Some days it's not even worth chewing through the restraints.
Finally a kind youger gentleman identifying himself as Thomas pulled his rather old compact car to the curb and took me all the way to Holland right up to my apartment complex. He had no AC and drove with the windows all down. He even had the heat on a little, I think, so as to keep the winshield from fogging. With his permission I rolled my window up my cell phone started plaing an Ella Fitzgerald tune sung by my oh-so-very talented Canuck girlfriend. She was worried for my being so late to sign in-world to Second Life where we nightly hold voice chat, sometimes while watching the same movie on DVD/BD three time zones apart. I told her about things, assuring as how I'd be all right.
A very nice guy, that Thomas. He even refused my offer of $20 for the ride. I got out at the big North Point Apts sign, said goodbye and limped (a little easier now) to my apartment. Then I signed into Facebook and gave Karin all the details and assured again that all would be fine.
In conclusion I have to add that the story told to the police by the other driver varied somewhat from mine. They claimed not to have really gotten onto the shoulder but only veered slightly toward a driveway then changed their minds. They had time to spin that tale any way they liked while I was still layed out unconscious. The oncoming driver saw something else yet again, reporting the care as having takenn a "crazy jig" or something like that. The reporting officer told me these abreviated versions of the witness statements later that night when he called my cell phone. He'd chosen ot to issue any tickets whoever's side of the story he himself believed. He made a point of reminding me that whatever the circumstances might have been the fact remains that I hit a car from behind. With no tickets being issued he politely suggest that maybe I ought not to make any fuss. Which I'll go along with seeing as how I have a divorce to deal with and never could handle two things at once.