Last Motorcycle accident.

[Billy Smith]

Well I wanted to chose this as my first post so perhaps someone will learn from it.  About 2 and a half years ago I was injured on my bike coming home from work.  It was a beautiful fall day and I had just gotten off work and was on the way home.  At the time I was riding a Honda 919.  Beautiful bike, comfortable and handles pretty well.  I was coming home on some of the back roads as they have a few twisties that are nice to ride and it breaks of the dullness of just riding on the interstate. 

As I was coming up a hill and about 150 yards from a stop sign I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a dog that ran out in front of me. At the time I was just doing the speed limit of 45 mph.  The next thing I remember is the Paramedic was asking if I was OK.  I said I thought I was and then asked what happened.  He told me I had hit a dog and went down.  I got out of the ambulance and looked at my bike, not so good.  Forks bent, tank on right side dented pretty good, right side casings holed.   I would not be riding it home. 

I did not go to the hospital from the scene as I did not feel like I needed to at the time.  I did still feel a little groggy, my head took a pretty good smack on the pavement.  Thank goodness I was wearing a good full face helmet.   My wife showed up on the scene and took me to where she worked as it was a diagnostic center and I could get my head x-rayed to make sure there was no concussion.  The doctors took one look at me there and said I needed to go on the the emergency room.  And that was without doing any x-rays. 

So off we go to the nearest emergency room.  When I got there I needed to go to the restroom, and it was at that time that I found out I was passing blood with my urine.  That is when I and my wife really got scared.  The hospital I was at could not handle the trauma so they sent me on to the Trauma Center at another hospital. 

They took me for a CT scan when I arrived and found out that I had a torn kidney.  They then told me they would have to keep me for observation to make sure that I would not need surgery to repair the damage.  After 3 days they took another CT scan and determined that the kidney seemed to be healing on it's own and let me go home after 5 days in the hospital. 

I still had to recover at home for about a week before the doctor would release me to go back to work. 

Now the real work would begin in trying to find the dog owner and see about getting my bike fixed.  The police officer that did the accident report did not put that information on the accident report so had to do some searching on my own.  Got lucky with the owner name as she came to my daughters school the next day after the accident and was talking to a teacher about her dog being hit by someone on a motorcycle and was afraid of being sued. 

Once I had the name I went to the county records and looked up any home ownership and low and behold they lived less than a couple of houses from where I had hit the dog. 

It was at that time I knew that I would need to contact an attorney and that is when I called Joel.  It took about a year to wrangle through all the legal stuff, but in the end I got another bike, ( the other was totaled) and I am riding again. 

The reason I went after the dog owner is that there is a leash law in our county.  And just like children pet owners are responsible for their pets. Now I am looking forward to many , many more miles of smiles.            

[Joel Moses]

Welcome. So glad to have you and what a great story to share with your fellow members. I can't help but say one thing though. You might have killed yourself by refusing to go to the hospital at first. It goes without saying that if you hit your head, hard, on the ground, you probably shouldn't be doing much critical thinking.

[Donald Charles]

Thank God your alright and I'm glad you was able to recoup your lost.

[Billy Smith]

Joel Moses said:

Welcome. So glad to have you and what a great story to share with your fellow members. I can't help but say one thing though. You might have killed yourself by refusing to go to the hospital at first. It goes without saying that if you hit your head, hard, on the ground, you probably shouldn't be doing much critical thinking.

[Billy Smith]

Joel,

You may be possibly be right, I perhaps should have gone ahead and transported from the accident scene. I have no idea how long I was out, but the paramedic was not insistant and other than being a little groggy I was ok. I am just thankful for the riding gear I was wearing. Especially the helmet. It did it's job quite well. The only lasting mark was a road rash scar on my right shoulder where my leather jacket tore through. Needless to say after a hit like that on the helmet it was retired. As well as the jacket. Now I am back riding again and now have an 01 FZ-1. I decided to buy a used bike as there are just to many nice used bikes out there as long as you are patient and know what you are looking at. This bike only had 6900 miles on it and looked show room fresh with several "extras" for comfort and looks added on. I am looking forward to making several out of town weekend trips this year. Will post about those later.

[Joel Moses]

I agree, used is the way to go. Why pay all the extra's for New, just to say it's new. Then you have to work it in, take the risk it's a lemon. Used, if you know what' your looking for, you get a good price and your ready to ride.

Billy Smith said:

Joel,

You may be possibly be right, I perhaps should have gone ahead and transported from the accident scene. I have no idea how long I was out, but the paramedic was not insistant and other than being a little groggy I was ok. I am just thankful for the riding gear I was wearing. Especially the helmet. It did it's job quite well. The only lasting mark was a road rash scar on my right shoulder where my leather jacket tore through. Needless to say after a hit like that on the helmet it was retired. As well as the jacket. Now I am back riding again and now have an 01 FZ-1. I decided to buy a used bike as there are just to many nice used bikes out there as long as you are patient and know what you are looking at. This bike only had 6900 miles on it and looked show room fresh with several "extras" for comfort and looks added on. I am looking forward to making several out of town weekend trips this year. Will post about those later.