Always wear protective gear when riding a motorcycle, no exceptions.
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
1 Corinthians 13:11
I was halfway through the corner when I realized I wasn’t going to make it. It was a blind 45-mph decreasing radius off-camber right-hand turn running slightly uphill and I desperately needed the front end to cut in on the apex. I counter-steered and leaned hard into the corner but continued to run wide. The big Beemer drifted across the center-divide into the oncoming lane of traffic.
Luckily, no one was traveling in the opposite direction. I stood the bike straight up as I hit the gravel on the far side of the road. I was still going 45 mph and angling toward a manzanita thicket 100 feet dead ahead of me.
It takes about two-thirds of a second to travel that far when you’re going that fast, a time span that stretched to infinity in my mind. The scene before me unfolded silently in stop-motion photography as I gradually squeezed on the brakes and the manzanita loomed larger in each successive frame. Near the end, I locked up the brakes and the wheels went out from underneath me as bike and rider careened sideways into the thicket at 25 mph.
A thick manzanita trunk brought the bike to a sudden stop, pitching me violently over the handlebars as the Plexiglas windshield exploded. I came crashing down on my head and my right shoulder on the hard-pack gravel a good distance in front of the motorcycle.
The No. 1 rule for surviving a motorcycle crash is to wear proper protective gear each and every time you ride. If I was one of those people you see riding around on their Harleys and their sportbikes wearing shorts, flip-flops and cheap plastic German army helmets, I wouldn’t be writing this story right now. I’d be dead.
That’s why, whether I’m commuting to work on my motorcycle or just out for a Sunday joy ride, I always, without exception, wear proper protective gear from head-to-toe, including a Snell-approved full-face helmet, fully-armored leathers or synthetic clothing, heavy-duty gloves and sturdy boots, no matter how freaking hot it is. I insist my girlfriend do the same when she’s riding pillion. I’d wager half of the motorcycle fatalities we read about far too often here in Shasta County might have been avoided if all riders stuck to this one simple rule.
On this particular occasion, I happened to be wearing my HJC Snell-approved helmet and my fully armored, high-viz yellow Aerostich suit. I’d spent the day substitute teaching at Foothill High School, it was one of those splendid spring afternoons that makes Shasta County seem like heaven on earth, so I decided to take the back roads home to Whitmore via Oak Run.
The fateful corner. Note manzanita thicket to right of Toyota pickup. That’s where I wound up.
This route doesn’t really get all that interesting until you reach the tiny hamlet of Oak Run and cross over to Whitmore via Oak Run-to-Fern Road. My speed-demon days are long behind me, but you can get your kicks on this serpentine stretch of well-maintained asphalt just by trying to maintain the 45-mph speed limit in the corners. Which is what I was doing until everything went sideways.
My helmet and Aerostich suit absorbed the impact when I smashed into the hard-pack. I rolled with the momentum, jumped to my feet and ran back to the bike, which was wedged tightly in the thicket, standing halfway up. The motor wasn’t running. I grabbed the rear sub-frame with both hands and attempted to pull the 550-pound motorcycle out of the brush. A jolt of intense pain shot through my right shoulder. Despite my suit’s ballistic padding, I’d broken my clavicle and several ribs.
For a split-second, I almost panicked, remembering that I’d forgotten my cell phone at home that day so there was no way to call for help. Then I remembered that out here in this part of eastern Shasta County, you can’t get a cell signal anyway. I stood wavering on the side of the road, wondering how the heck I was going to get out of this mess.
Several minutes later, two guys in a utility truck heading toward Oak Run came by and pulled up to a stop. If they’d happened by several minutes earlier, they’d be wearing me for a hood ornament. I don’t remember their line of business, but both of them were behemoths, big men, probably loggers. They sized up the situation and without saying a word latched on to the big Beemer with their heavy mitts, manhandled it out of the thicket, and placed it on its side stand at the edge of the road.
I think they offered to call an ambulance and a tow truck for me once they got to Oak Run. I wasn’t tracking what they were saying so well. The entire right side of the bike was trashed from its slide through the gravel and the bushes. The previously unblemished fuel tank was bashed in, the luggage container had been torn off, and the turn signals were flashing due to an electrical short. I walked over to the motorcycle, turned off the key and the lights stopped flashing.
Then, almost as an afterthought, I flipped the key back on and hit the starter button, totally expecting the bike not to start. The big Beemer fired right up. I gave the two behemoths a quizzical look. I think they politely suggested that riding the bike back home in my condition wasn’t such a great idea.
Whatever they said, I ignored it. I swung a leg over the bike, stretched out my arms to the handlebars, found a position that didn’t acerbate my damaged right shoulder too much, and somehow managed to grit out the remaining five miles of twisting foothill tarmac home.
My girlfriend was in the garden when I arrived.
“Baby!” I croaked from the garage. “Help! I crashed!”
I broke my left collar bone when I was 13, so now I have a matched set.
Little Brother To The Rescue
We went in the house and she helped me out of my gear. After the ride home, my right arm was now useless, any attempt to move it sent a wave of incapacitating pain ripping through my shoulder and rib cage. She undid all the suit’s straps and zippers. She unbuttoned my shirt and as it slipped off my shoulders, revealing my injuries, she caught her breath.
“You’ve got to go to the hospital,” she gasped.
The problem with that was I was in no shape to drive 30 miles to Redding and my girlfriend doesn’t drive. Or rather, she doesn’t drive the one four-wheeled vehicle we have at our disposal, a funky old 1985 Toyota pickup with a 5-speed manual transmission, in part because I’m too damned lazy to teach her how to drive a stick shift, but mainly because I’m too damned stubborn to buy a real car, one she could actually drive.
I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My shoulder was a mangled mess, rapidly swelling and beginning to discolor. The broken ends of my collar bone poked out against the swollen skin. Several ribs jutted out in the wrong direction. I felt strangely disassociated from my own body. I pressed my left finger on one of the broken ends of my collar bone. It moved. Yep, definitely broken. Time to call Dad.
It was, he told me later, the phone call he’s been dreading for the greater portion of my adult life, the news that his No. 1 Son had finally gone down on his motorcycle. Dad rode motorcycles all through my childhood, right up until he wiped out his Yamaha 650 riding into work one frigid morning. He wasn’t seriously hurt, but he gave up bikes right there and then at age 50. I’m 58.
Mom and Dad moved from Whitmore to Redding last year in large part because Dad, 81, had grown weary of driving the 60-mile round trip on winding mountain roads to Redding for doctor’s appointments and grocery shopping and whatnot three or four times a week. We moved into their old house in Whitmore. My brother Chris, No. 2 Son, lives right next door with his wife and six dogs. As it happened, he’d just gotten off work and had dropped by Mom and Dad’s when I called. He took over the phone.
“I’m on my way,” he said.
By the time Chris arrived at the house 45 minutes later, the shock had worn off, the pain had set in and I was frozen on the couch, my right arm trussed up with an old sling like a broken wing. He handed me a plastic baggie with several white pills in it, hydrocodone left over from a previous prescription.
“You’re going to need these,” he said. “It’s going to be a long night.”
I took two. When you survive a motorcycle accident, it’s good to remember that opiates are your friend.
Ouch!
Mercy and Morphine at the ER
We decided to go to Mercy Medical Center’s emergency room because you can book your arrival time in advance on the hospital’s website. My girlfriend stayed behind and booked the appointment, my brother drove like a bat out of hell all the way to Redding, slowing down only when I moaned when he’d take a corner too fast and the seat belt would cut into my broken clavicle.
The ER seemed pretty crowded for a Tuesday night, but Mercy’s reservation system worked well for me. Within 15 minutes of signing in upon arrival, I was providing my medical and insurance information to one of the clerks behind the counter. As a disabled vet, my health insurance carrier is the Veteran’s Administration, which will pick up my tab at Mercy because the VA offers no evening emergency services in Redding. Despite the horror stories you hear about the VA, it has come a long way in recent decades, and Mercy accepted my VA benefits card no questions asked.
Note to younger motorcycle riders out there: Don’t think that just because the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate has been eliminated, you don’t need to carry health insurance. If you want to survive a motorcycle accident, especially the financial end of it, get yourself on Medi-Cal at the very least.
The clerk asked what my level of pain was on a scale of 1 to 10; I said 11. She gave me a little side-eye when she asked if I needed pain medication and I told her I’d already taken two hydrocodone and would probably be OK until I saw the doctor. In fact, the pills were starting to kick in and I was feeling a little frisky.
“Religious preference?” she asked.
“This is a Catholic hospital, right?” I replied.
“Yes,” she said tentatively.
“Catholic!” I beamed.
That got a smile out of her. It was half-true, sort of. My Dad was an altar boy until he had a falling out with the Church in his teens. Today, he calls himself an atheist but he can still quote the Sermon on the Mount, and those values are what in part my two brothers and I were raised on, even though we rarely set foot in any church and Dad might be inclined to deny it. I’m not as certain about the God thing as he is, either. I’ve been baptized and I haven’t murdered anybody yet, and if having a priest give me the last rites can help grease the skids into heaven, I’m willing to hedge my bet. When in Rome …
Look at all the pretty colors! One week after the accident.
My brother left after I was checked in and I rode the hydrocodone for the next two hours as events proceeded in assembly-line like fashion. One nurse took my vital signs, another nurse drew my blood, the radiologist took x-rays of my clavicle, shoulder, ribs and my left thumb, which I’d sprained when I was thrown over the handlebars but hadn’t noticed until I got to the hospital.
But eventually all the prep work was done and the long wait for the doctor truly began. The medication wore off and I began to wear down. In my mind, I began snarking at the patients called ahead of me. What could possibly be so wrong with that pregnant woman that she couldn’t wait for me? What about that old man? He’s having trouble breathing? Come back in the morning! I’ve got multiple freaking fractures!
Pondering that older gentleman with the respiratory ailment, it occurred to me that I was the second oldest guy in the ER, and my anger inevitably turned inward. “What are you doing here?” the voice in my head chided. “Aren’t you getting a little long in the tooth for such shenanigans? Isn’t it long past the time for you to set aside childish things?”
It was hard to deny that voice inside my head. For nearly 20 years, ever since I bought the big Beemer brand new in 2000, I’ve foolishly proclaimed I’m a motorcycle guy who has no need for a decent automobile, despite growing evidence to the contrary. Such thinking might have been passable when I lived in the city, where public transportation is plentiful and a hospital is never more than a few miles away. But out here in the sticks, where I live now? It’s borderline irresponsible behavior.
Somehow, I’d imagined that I’d never grow old, that I’d continue riding the twisting mountain roads between Whitmore and Redding forever, until the day I died. It has never occurred to me that one day, like my father, I’d grow weary of the drive.
Someone called my name, “Robert,” and I snapped out of the depressive state I’d sunken into. The doctor’s nurse ushered me into the examination room and took my vital signs again. She asked me to rate my pain on a scale of 1-to-10. I said 15, and she handed me a paper cup with two purple pills in it: Percocet, an opioid significantly more powerful than hydrocodone.
“How strong are these?” I asked.
“Better take both of them,” she said.
She left the room and several minutes later the doctor arrived. You know you’re getting old when your physicians are always younger than you are. He began reading my chart but stopped when he came to my name.
“Scheide?” he said, pronouncing my last name correctly. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
Uh-oh. He knew who I was.
“I’m a journalist,” I offered meekly.
“Are you R.V. Scheide, that guy who writes for aNewsCafe.com?” he asked. Hoping he was a fan, I admitted I was.
“Well, I just want to tell you that my wife and I recently moved here, and we really appreciate what you’re doing.”
All the self-doubt I’d been experiencing in the waiting room instantly melted away with the good doctor’s praise. I don’t necessarily write to get compliments, but it sure feels nice when you get one, especially in my depleted condition.
He ran through the x-rays with me, pointing out the lateral fracture running the length of my clavicle and several broken ribs that appeared to be freely floating inside my rib cage. “We don’t torture people anymore,” he said when I asked if I would be given a brace like the one I’d received when I broke my left collar bone playing football at age 13. He wrote me a referral to an orthopedic surgeon, but with any luck, he said I probably wouldn’t require surgery, because my clavicle wasn’t displaced too badly.
Then he did one of the kindest things any physician has ever done for me. He wrote me a three-day prescription for morphine sulfate, one of the most powerful opioid painkillers on the market.
Believe it or not, it looks worse than it actually is.
Never Say Die
It was past midnight when the cab dropped me off at my parent’s house. More than eight hours had passed since the accident. I got their dogs settled down, crawled into the guest bed and quickly fell asleep in a narcotic haze.
In the morning, Dad drove me to the VA outpatient clinic, where I got my morphine prescription filled at the pharmacy. The Redding VA is in the process of phasing out its orthopedic clinic, and initially it was going to send me by bus to Sacramento for the orthopedic surgeon referral, a journey I was in no condition to make. Fortunately, the clinic hasn’t been completely phased out yet and the patient advocate was able to get me an appointment with the visiting orthopedist, who informed me I wouldn’t be requiring surgery.
My Dad drove me home, the first time he’s made the drive to Whitmore since moving away last year. He always loved the drive, right up to the moment that he didn’t. Later, I asked him if he missed it.
“Nope,” he said.
When I got home, I called my insurance company, Progressive. I’ve carried full coverage insurance with them for more than 20 years, and until now, I’ve never had to file a claim. If you want to survive a motorcycle accident, full coverage is the only way to go. The agent promised to send a claims adjuster out the following Thursday, and warned me in advance not to freak out when I got their letter in the mail asserting the accident was 100 percent my fault, it was merely a formality.
For several days, I was afraid to go out to the garage and look at the bike. I knew the damage was severe—a new fuel tank to replace the bashed in one goes for more than $1500 alone—and that Progressive would most likely declare the big Beemer a total loss. When I finally did summon the courage to assess the damage, I was surprised to discover it wasn’t as bad as I’d originally thought. With a few shrewd purchases of used parts on eBay, including a used fuel tank, I figured I could probably restore the bike to its original condition for less than $2000.
That’s what everybody thinks, the insurance adjuster informed me when he showed up last week. But insurance companies don’t operate that way. They have to go by the market rate for new parts and labor, and taking that into account, my 18-year-old motorcycle was undeniably a total loss.
However, there was an option. I’ve fitted the big Beemer with numerous expensive aftermarket parts, which adds considerably to its value on the salvage market. I could allow Progressive to assume possession of the bike and receive a lump sum payment large enough to put money down on a new car, or I could retain the vehicle and receive a smaller lump sum payment that would be more than enough to restore the bike to its original condition, as long as I do all the work myself.
So that’s where I’m at now, waiting for the claims adjuster to get back to me with his estimates. I’d like to say I’ve learned something from this terrible ordeal, that after 58 years on this planet I’ve at long last decided to set aside childish things and grow up. But that’s just not how I roll, at least today.
I’m keeping the bike.
