A lesson to be learned....

I just spent the last 48 hours in ICU with my wife. Not for my injuries but for my stepdaughter. I have raised my stepdaughter since she was 7 and she is 21 now. She has always been afraid of bikes and although I ride all the time, she would never ride with me. She had an uncle and cousin both killed on bikes so she always preached to me the dangers of motorcylces. I am a volunteer fireman and I heard the call Saturday for a careflight due to a m/c accident in adjoining jurisdiction. about 30 minutes later I got one of those calls that we as parents fear. "Your child has been in an accident and is being flown to a hospital." My wife works as a SGT at the local prison so I had to call her to get her to come home. I met her with my truck for the run to the hospital 40 miles away. She has a fractured skull, broken collar bone, shoulder blade, and multiple fractures in her foot and and ankle. The Drs feel pretty sure no brain or spinal injuries. She will recover, but she will have a lot of scarring. She has road rash over 60% of her body.

The lessons come in as to how she wound up there... she was riding with a guy that had just bought this bike, Yamaha Star/ HD copy. He had no m/c drivers license and had not ridden much until this. They had no helmets. They were at a wedding party and my daughter was wearing a skirt with flats. The boy walked away from this with minor scrapes. He came to the hospital to apologize and said he was only going 30 mph when he lost it. Last night I went to the scene and measured 243 feet of metal slide on the road where it went down. Looks like he cut close to the edge of the road and dropped off the asphalt. Sadly, parallel to the bike drag was 170 feet blood and tissue trail of my daughter. My daughter had been drinking champagne which is probably only reason she was talked into riding. Motorcycling is getting popular again. This means more young and inexperienced riders are hitting the road. If you fit this category or know someone that does, Make them get a M/C license and take a safety Course. I know this kid is sorry and my daughter does not blame him, but this did not have to happen. No way with a slideout of 243 feet was he going 30 mph. I guess close to 100mph. I have 30 years experience and many years racing, am I perfect, no. But I tend to know my limits and I do not ride the same with passengers as I do on a track!!!

My baby will live, scarred badly. The plastic surgeons did a good job of closing her skull, Ortho are operating on her knee as I type this. I do not know how long this will take but she is lucky. she lived....Its one thing to test our abilities with our ass on the line.... Please, think of the others, especially passengers....

AH man.....

My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family; especially your stepdaughter.

And your advice is certinainly true about getting that endorsment and training...

Godspeed my man.

Wishing for a speedy recovery with few long lasting health issues.

I hope and pray for the best for your daughter and her parents.

What an irony ...... she wouldn't ride with you. I hope she recovers OK, my best wishes for her and her family. What a hard lesson!
Sure sounds like alcohol was involved - not a good recipe with a new bike and no gear.

What a horrible trial for her to have to go through. I wish her the best, and all of mine will be praying for her complete recovery.

I guess there is a time to pull it together to get her heading in the direction, the direction of recovery, and now is that time. No need for further anger right now-won't help, and I can tell you are on a good course there...

But there will be another time, in the near future, for sure to deal with a slide of a big pig bike like that of 243 ft, and why that type of carelessness happened at all.

Best wishes for your stepdaughter and family.

If she was fortunate and had no brain injuries, she is one lucky girl.

I'll be thinking of you both...........Rod.

A parents worst nightmare. God willing she will fully recover. My thoughts and prayers to you and your family.

Your daughter

This is not the time to preach.

No words will ease your pain.

I'm sure I speak for others when I say our thoughts and prayers are with
you and your family.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Unfortunately when we talk about proper gear to the younger crowd we are just a bunch of "old farts" so I usually get them to this website to take the lesson from one of their peers. This young lady shares a very painful lesson in great detail

http://www.myspace.com/brit2morrow

Here is to a quick recovery for all.

My best wishes for a good recovery. Your warning will unfortunately be heeded by too few...

Thanks everyone, they were late starting her surgery so she is in now. Again she is the one that preaced if u ride at least use a helmet... I ride with helmet, gloves, impact jacket and boots all the time... I had wondered if the operator was drinking but I talked to the trooper that handled case and he said neither he nor EMS personel suspected alcohol as a factor in the wreck. That leaves stupidity and lack of experience.... Kid received 4 citations at the time. No m/c DL, excessive speed, no registration and no veh inspection.

Our thoughts are with her, sorry for the mental stress it causes all the family as well.

Sorry to hear, wish a speedy recovery to all.

so sad to read this.
Your daughter will be lucky to have you and your wife there as she recovers.

Thoughts and prayers with your step daughter.

riderR1150GSAdv said:

My best wishes for a good recovery. Your warning will unfortunately be heeded by too few...

Click to expand...

Sadly I fear what you say is true. I am not an instructor. I know I take chances sometimes, guess to a point we all do. I have landed in ERs several due to my errors...most of those were because I was pushing limits racing in a controlled environment. I accepted those conditions when I participated... I used to think I was a jr Evil Kneivel. Got pics of me jumping pickup trucks on my dirt bikes... Flying was easy...the landings were not always pretty though... One thing though, I have never drove crazy with someone on the back of my bike. I realize as kids they don't think until too late... I have never been one to sell people on bikes...Cannot tell you how many times I have had friends ask me if they should get a bike. I tell them NO, why cause if they need my assurances they need to rethink why they are doing it. It needs to be their decision, their acceptance of responsibility for themselves and their passengers. I tend to ride alone, not because I am anti social but I have different set of riding criteria when I ride with others... I do plan on talking to one of the local riders that I recently alienated because he is unsafe, not so by deliberation but lack of experience... Avoiding issues,never fixes issues... criticism if constructive can be helpful. I don't want to be a MSF instructor, but I bet many of us have seen riders that would benefit from MSF or at least some good advice.... If we influence even one to take that step, we may save someone the pain or even death... My wife and I both volunteer in emergency services as first responders, so accidents and trauma are not new to us...what is new is when the trauma hits home...

At least she's still here, thanks to God and everyone who did so much to get her this far... Prayers for a complete recovery.

My gosh, how terrible. My heart sank hearing of this event. Best wishes to your daughter for a complete recovery.

Dang