Topic: brushes with death?

[BobbyR]

Pilots can tell you what transpired prior to the actual event but when it happens quickly the details become skecthy. There is another similar thing reported by Police. At the range they feel and hear the Pistol go off very clearly. Many report that in a true stress filre situation with no ear protection they have this unreal sense the Pistol did not fire since they are not getting the feedback they are accustomed to. There is just so much info the brain can process. I went out of control driving a dump truck, I swear everything went black and white on me. It is very odd.

[tsp37]

I don't remember the impact of my wreck.  A van made a left hand turn in front of me, and I knew I was about to crash.  I wondered (very casually, given the circumstances) if it was better to lay the bike down or just hang on.  Suddenly I am on the pavement looking up at the brilliant October sky.  My very first thought was "I've wrecked by beautiful motorcycle . . ." 

[merc2dogs]

 I've always been the no-helmet type, always had one but prefer not wearing one.
 
  One day heading into SF after dropping my girlfriend off at home in salinas, She said I should wear the helmet, so to make her happy I put it on. Got almost into the city, and went to pass a semi, when I got closer to it and started changing lanes I noticed something white between the rear duels on the trailer, got perfectly in line and it cut loose, it was a chunk of concrete bigger than my fist. Hit my helmet right above the eye, snapped my head back with enough force to make me loose my grip on the bars. Only thing that kept me on the bike was the b-bar, I mean it laid me right down on the seat, I was eeing stars big time, managed to get back upright and grab the bars before I hit the shoulder, stopped the bike and shut it down. My ears were ringing, my vision was all crossed up, my neck was all locked up, from snapping back then hitting the b-bar, I ended up sitting there for over a half hour till my head cleared.

 Cruised over to SF general, and got checked out because my ears were still ringing and I was having a hard time keeping my eyes focused. no damage, but the helmet was toast, new at the time Bell fiberglass with a big gouge taken out of it, and cracked  down to the opening.
 
  Closest to real injury I've ever been on a bike without once hitting the ground.

 
  Now if you want a laughable accident, (now, but at the time it was painfull) I was running my girlfriend home one night (after moving up to michigan) and since we were running late I took the most direct route which is a somewhat twisty and very isolated dirt road (that is dirt, not gravel, what they call seasonal roads up here, but honest states call them firetrails ) 
 Anyway, came up to a curve and saw a black 'lump' in the road,couldn't make out what it was so I angled off to miss it, got closer and saw it was a porcupine, only doing about 35, so I checked it out as I went by, when I looked ahead again, there were two more of the things in the road right in front of me, I hit the one with the front tire, which knocked me over far enough that I hit the other one with my leg and foot, got the bike straightened up and stopped so I could look at my leg which seriously paining me,  looked and I had about 40-50 quills in my leg and boot, tried to pull them out and figured I'd tough out and ride to her house where I could actualy see what I was doing, fired up the bike (only time I realy NEEDED electric start) and put it in gear only to find out I had a flat tire with quills stuck through the sidewall.
 
 I couldn't walk with all the quills in my boot so I started pulling quills out with pliers, and found out that I couldn't get all the quills out of my foot without pulling my boot off, and I couldn't pull the boot off without getting the quills out, so I ended up having to pull all the quills I could then cut the boot off and pull the ones that were buried. 4 miles to the pavement, and roughly a mile after that to the first house, and nobody was home so we had to go to the next one before we could get ahold of someone to come get my bike and get her home. ended up getting her home at around 6:30.

 Only time I'd ever seen a porcupine in the wild, and they screwed my whole day up.

Ken.

[Uncle Ernie]

Fun stuff here.  All mine are pretty boring, though.  Been carted off 3 times. The other times- it's nice there's so many good ol' boys with pick-ups around here.  (If only to pull a bike off ya)

[Slapguts]

Two of them in the first year of riding.

I was pulling away from a stop light that had just turned green on a 4 lane state highway. (US301 in Sarasota) Pulled the clutch, clicked up into second, and got rear ended. Clipped the back turn signal off the bike, hit the left side exhaust and blew the entire system off the front of the engine. Hit the center stand, bent it all to hell, and grazed my jeans just enough to leave black tire marks. Everyone I knew that rode always said the hit the gas in a situation like that, since it will keep the bike upright. It worked. I nailed the throttle, and the bike stayed up. The car that nailed me swerved into the grass median, back on to the road, and the brake lights never even came on. I tried to chase him down, but with no exhaust on the bike, it started fouling the plugs before I could catch up. The cops said that the first three numbers of his license plate and the make, model and color of the car (with fresh damage to the right front) wasn't enough info to find him, so the bastard got away with it. Haven't been able to take an eye off the rear view at a stop light since.

Second one was more recent. I was cruising along a nice straight country road, and had a truck pulling a trailer cut out in front of me from a side road. I had more than enough time to swerve around the side of him, but just as I got next to the trailer, he swung a U-turn. Right in front of me. I locked the brakes, and got the bike sideways just enough the hit it with my shoulder instead of head on. Slammed right into the drivers side door. I think. Next thing I remember is being loaded into the back of an ambulance on a board. Like DammitDan said, 5 hours is a long damn time to lay strapped to a piece of wood. Spent three months going to physical therapy to get my shoulder to work right again.

I've had 6 concussions, and the reason most folks don't have a memory of the accident is that your brain stores the current goings on in one part, and commits them to a separate part in your permanent memory a few minutes later. During the accident, your brain shuts that function down, so the actual event of the accident never makes it to permanent memory. That's one of the tell tale signs of a concussion, lack of memory of the actual event.

[eldar]

Gotta love lazy cops. You can bet that if it was tied to drugs or a homicide, the make and model and firts 3 letters would have been MORE than enough to find that car. Course I am sure the cops and their supporters would have said they were too busy to track the person down. I would have certainly contacted a lawyer and at least asked what some possible options were.  I love how pplice abuse their power when they feel like it.