So it was a beautiful day in Vegas today, yep everything I'm about to describe happened between about 3pm and 7pm today. I decided to slip out of work a bit early and hit some roads out of town. I go to a nice little winding section that I've done a few times and enjoy some back and forth. Being a responsible type (boring) I keep my speed down close to the speed limit on the curves. Well I come up to one of my favorite little S bends and just as I start to lean into the first curve I see some truck has been so polite as to gravel the pavement for even more excitement. I feel the front end starting to go, almost slam on the breaks in panic, luckily I didn't, that would have been a lot bloodier. It's amazing how quick you can decide things when you need to. I ease the bike up straight, not even 1/3 of the way into the turn and decide to go in for a little All-American Pass-time.. "Scare the **** out of the coyotes". I launch off of the road coasting at about 20-30 mph, I wasn't looking at the speedometer at this point. I clear the first small berm but the second gets me, twists the handlebars out of my hands and high sides me into a face plant on the welcoming desert rocks.

When I regain my senses I'm standing about 8 feet from my bike, facing the open desert. First thing I think is "can I see", if I can everything else is secondary. Yep I could see, blurry but I could see. I look around for my bike and see it dug into the berm. I give it a tug of and think, "hell it's nothin' I'll ride it out." So I'm standing there trying to figure out how to dig it out, give it some tentative tugs, not wanting to damage it by yanking on it too hard (cause diving with it's full momentum at 20-30mph into hard dirt is nothing, but a hard yank might upset it). As I fruitlessly wobble about tugging at the bike a county fire marshal truck happens upon the scene. At the time I didn't think it strange that they would just happen to be on this two lane blacktop that gets maybe 30 cars a day on it, but now, I'm ****ing never taking that little gremlin bell my sister got me off the bike.

They pull up and the passenger gets out and walks over to me. "You doin' okay?" he asks. I look up and for the first time I notice blood dripping in front of my eyes. "I don't know, how do I look?" I asked back. "Not very good," he replied. He very slowly helped me removed my helmet and did a check for lumps, then has me take off my gloves and he gives my hands a squeeze and asks if I can feel them. They both then lead me over to their pickup and tell me to sit in the back seat, then they both walk to the front and get on their cells. I watch them for about 30 seconds, then look back at my bike. "Oh ****, the key is still turned and the lights are on. I'm going to drain my battery," I think, and slip out of the truck and wobble back over to the bike and start tugging on it again.

Both of them come and get me and explain that there might be something serious wrong with me and I need to sit still, then lead me back to the truck. I sit and they both go back to their cells. This time I'm much better behaved, I wait a minute before I look at my poor bike laying on it's side and decide that is just not right at all. I slip back out of the truck, wobble over again and once me begin to feebly attempt to rescue my bike. The passenger comes up and very sternly explains that I can't be moving around like that. The driver by this point has figured out I'm more concerned about the bike than myself so he tells the driver we need to right my bike. So we all three tilt the bike up and kickstand it. The passenger tells me to now go sit in the truck before someone sees them letting me walk about and they get fired. I check the bike quickly, now feeling blood drizzling off my nose, noticing the handlebars and the forks aren't quite pointing in the same direction. I decide to get a torxdriver out of my tool bag and try to loosen the triple tree to straighten them so I can get back on the road. At this point even the driver has had enough of me and he puts an arm around me and pulls me away from the bike saying "Dude, we got the bike, we'll keep it safe, now go sit in the truck." I start walking to the truck and look down, then I realize why everything is so blurry, I barely miss stepping on what's left of my glasses. I reach down and pocket them then climb back in the truck.

This last time they don't take chances, they stand in front of me, blocking my view of the Dyna, so all I can do is sit and watch my blood make a little pools under me. They do the hand squeeze thing, look into my eyes, have me hold wads of gauze over my face to soak up the blood, ask me about myself and the bike. After a few minutes they are both assured I didn't break my head, I'm just stupid.

It took about 40 minutes for the ambulance to arrive to take over. The first thing the paramedic wants to do is cut off my jacket. HA! NO FRIGGIN WAY! I'm a proud poser, no one touches my HD leather. The driver explains it's best not to argue the point and they let me take off my jacket slowly, as I lay it on the floor of the ambulance I can finally see how much blood is covering the front. The thought immediately pops into my head that I should put it back on and ask one of them to use their cells to take a picture of me. But I figured they already know I'm a dumbass, if I ask for photos they may just decide I'm Darwin material, shove me out the back and go on their merry way. So instead it's more squeezing, more "oh that doesn't look good", blood pressure checks, pulse checks, wound swabbing, then a replacement handful of gauze to keep me from making a mess of the ambulance. The inspectors stand close by watching it all. The paramedic asks if I lost consciousness. The driver laughs and says "when we pulled up, Mr. tough guy here was trying to get back on the bike and ride away." I told him I don't remember hitting the ground but I don't think I was unconscious, just stunned. They do the follow my finger thing, then decide if I had a concussion I would be puking or wanting to go to sleep by this point so I'm safe to transport.

The truck driver asks if I want to leave my key with him and he'll make sure the county cop gets it so they can move the bike someplace safe. I give it to him and climb into the ambulance. The passenger runs up with a biohazard bag, here's your gear he says as he laid it on the floor of the ambulance. The paramedic is a pretty chatty fellow and we go on about life in the area, how long we both have been here, things like that. He has me pull the gauze away and says "hey, looks like the bleeding has..." then I felt blood run down over my cheek and nose, "nevermind," and he pushed more gauze onto it. The ride actually passes pretty quick. At this point I have no clue where my cell is so I ask him to call a buddy for me and ask him to come pick me up and tell him where we will be.

The ambulance took about 30 minutes to get to a itty bitty clinic that I have no clue where it was. There was a doctor and a nurse and that's it. No patients, no receptionist, just these too that look like they just walked off the set of St. Elsewhere. At they prep the treatment room the paramedic has me get out of the rest of my gear. Yep, chaps baby.. nicely scrubbed by the rocks and with their own streaks of blood from my face. He looks at them and my boots which are pretty trashed. "Man, I'll tell you what, that gear saved your *** out there today, you would have lost a lot of skin without all this." Taking off the chaps dumped around two handfuls of pebbles on the clinic floor. I apologized for the mess and he laughed.

The treatment started with the prerequisite torture, some huge *** needle shoved as deep as the doc could get it into my cuts "to numb them". Oh yeah, I've been here before. This guy was really good though, sure it hurt like hell, but he had my face pumped full of drugs in about 10 seconds flat. He sat back and let them go to work and asked me about my bike, then told me about his Ultra that he had bought about five years ago when a buddy told him he had cancer and an early death sentence and they decided to do one last ***** out trip to Vegas. He didn't say where they started but that it took days to come out, and then they both just decided to stay. His buddy actually lasted a couple of years out here and spent it all riding and enjoying life. The Doc got married and now cruises every weekend with his wife on board.

By the time he finished his story he was ready to get to work, he pokes me head a few times and asks if I can feel it. "Not really," I replied. He smiled, nodded to the nurse then the proceed to mummify me with those little blue paper towels. Covering everything but the hole in my head. The nurse, who at this time was looking very cute, grabbed my hand and whispered "I'm right here, I won't leave." I thought that was cool, but then it also had me worried, 'what you are waiting for my last breath now' I thought. But then the doc went about the process of singering my face back together. It actually didn't turn out to bad. He ended up with somewhere around 15 stitches over my eye. He said the cut on my nose would head okay by itself and gave me some cream for the road rash on my face.

During the stitchup while I was blindfolded the county cop came in. He asked me what happened, I told him, he asked if I was going to do an insurance claim. I said no, since I already have a mechanic ready to look at my bike tomorrow we'll just change it from a health check to a crash estimate. Plus he'll get me back on the road in a few days rather than the weeks it might take the dealership waiting for parts. Turns out he's a motorcyclist too, and so was the nurse, she has a Sportster. After he listens to my explanation he tells me he wants me to write a statement. He says there's not legal issues since I didn't die or hit a coyote. He did mention that I might want to consider getting a sturdier helmet before wrecking again. I'm thinking, my sister got me the gremlin bell and the helmet and I'm walking away from this with a few stitches... Hell, I'm calling my sister and telling her to buy me another helmet, she's blessed or something.

After all the paperwork was done (which buy the way, never once did anyone ask to see my medical insurance, or even for that matter mentioned payment, I'm sure I'll get a bill, but how friggin sweet is that these days to get full medical attention without needing to dig through our wallet for your HMO card while you lay bleeding on a table), anyway after all that, the paramedic comes in and says that my buddy is at a gas station on the edge of town. I ask them if they can give him directions and the cop shook his head and says, it'll be easier for me to just take you over there.

So I gave handshakes all around, thanking everyone for helping, they thanked me for livening up a boring day and the cop dropped me off with my bloody leathers and my bio hazard bag full of gloves, goggle parts and whatever fell out of my pocket.

My buddy gave me a sideways glance, I asked him how it looked. "You look ****ed up, man" he laughed and pointed us in some direction I couldn't see as the entire world at this point is just one big blurry blob. After an hour of driving we get back to my house, where minutes before writing this all down I have rented a Uhaul trailer so I can call the cop in the morning and have him try to guide me and my buddy to where he put my bike. I feel bad about trailering the bike.. I'm sure I can get those forks straight and ride it home, but.. since right now I can't see worth a crap, and no way I'll get my glasses fixed before Saturday, I'll just lug it over to the mechanic's and let him have all the glory.

Anyway here's what I looked like, stitched and cleaned, as of around 8pm tonight, Las Vegas time.

 

wow.

that was one hell of a read man, honestly reading your whole post first and THEN looking at the picture i thought you'd look way more f*cked up than that.

somebody was definitely on your side out there today.

good luck with getting healthy and getting back on the road.

 

Daym GAZZ, that was a hell of a ride! Glad to hear ya made it through. You also got quite a good talent with "the pen". I saw the long post and said no way am I reading all this ****. But the way you write is so captivating, it held my intrest all the way through.
Like I said before, Glad ya made it through with just a few stitckes & some rash. Heal up, get the bike fixed, and ride and write some more!! just no more crashing!!

 

Glad it worked out ok. You dont look to bad for hitting desert floor. Good thing someone showed up to help.
What kind of helmet were you wearing?

 

Thanks for the comments so far. I never got to really inspect the bike, I'm hoping that it's just tweaked in the front end and will be ridable tomorrow evening again. Course, I just now thought of this.. It might be a few days before I can put a pair of goggles on again. Dangit.

DynaWide42 - The helmet is a SOAR polo style novelty helmet. I have several DOT helmets but when my sister gave me this one it just seemed like it should be worn. Now, maybe a DOT helmet would have done something different or better, I can't say, but I do know I went down head first pretty darn hard and was walking and talking immediately after. Maybe just dumb luck, but my sister always has this way of making it through the down right shittiest situations with a smile on her face. Maybe it rubs on on the things she gives. Maybe I'll just double up on the next one and ask her to get me a DOT.

 

Great write up and glad you are okay. Too damn bad though about having to trailer the bike.

By the way, scars are even better than tats.

 

I want some of the meds they gave you....you sure are chatty for a guy that just cracked his melon open

 

You mean to tell me you did not load that bike into the ambulance? what kind of HD owner are you, leaving that injured jewel all alone with strangers in its time of need?

Glad your OK man.

 

Glad your okay. Well written account.

 

Yea, a DOT would have had more padding in front. But whos to say what would have been different.
If you had nothing on, it would been worse for sure.