Faaarrk...shook me up!

from a mate this arvo

Sunday 05/11/06.

I watched a man I did not know die today. I stood in the bright, clear
sun of yet another pristine morning in beautiful North Queensland, and
watched his mate shake uncontrollably as he tried in vain to maintain
an airway through what remained of this bloke’s head as he lay
breathing his terminal breath and bleeding his lifeblood out into the
dirt in a gutter on the side of the road.
We’d arrived on the scene about five minutes after things had
gone so very, very bad. While I did what I could do to help the
emergency crew on the scene without getting in their way, Doc dived in
and did as much as anyone could expect to do under the circumstances
to assist the injured rider – which turned out to be not very much at
all. I met Doc’s eyes as he stood up over the body after a couple of
minutes of feverish and intense, yet strangely quiet medical activity,
and didn’t see any hope in the very slight shake of his head.
Since we obviously could do nothing more for the rider, we
diverted our attention to assisting the two blokes he’d been riding
with. I knew them vaguely, in that way that I know a lot of people by
nick-name and the bike they ride. It was obvious they were both
suffering from mild shock, which was totally understandable under the
circumstances. Violent and unexpected blunt-force trauma leading to
death is never a pleasant experience.
It took us half an hour of searching through the scrub to find
his helmet, which, for some strange reason seemed so goddamn important
at the time. The main impact had left a significant mark a couple of
meters up a large tree at the side of the road, though there was a
clear trail of destruction in the hundred meters leading up to it.
From the clipped guide post right at the beginning of the corner, to
the slide mark in the gravel, and the branches and bits of tree strewn
all over the place, the path was very clear.
The energy and forces involved were so great that there were bits
of the bike actually thrown up into the top of nearby trees, and tiny
bits of debris scattered all around the area. We found his watch
strap, a rubber headlight grommet, a pre-load adjuster, a fork spring,
and various bits of plastic distributed erratically between the point
where he’d left the road, and the point where he’d come to rest, which
indicated that the landing had not been a gentle one.
Doc eventually located the lid, on the inside of the bend on the
complete opposite side of the road, at least twenty meters from the
body. We had a bit of a look - the shell seemed to be largely intact,
and the strap was still done up. As Doc said, there’s only a couple of
ways a helmet can be removed without undoing the strap, and neither of
them are overly pleasant for the person wearing it at the time.
We talked to his mates while the police did their thing, and
found out that the rider had just got back on a bike after a long
absence. Having recently broken up with his wife, the 1000RR had been
a bit of an escape. No-one will ever be sure what happened, but it
looked like he’d simply come into the corner way too fast for his
comfort, and had frozen up. Neither of the blokes behind him saw his
brake lights come on, so it looks like he just rode it into the wall
at full noise.
Doc and I got off lightly. All we had to do was give his mates as
much help as we could on the scene, fend the media vultures off, and
give them a hand to load their bikes onto a ute – they were in no
condition to ride home. The cops had the unenviable task of informing
his parents and girlfriend, but I have no idea who had to go to his
house and tell his two young kids that their dad was not coming home.


Don't let it happen to you.

I'm off to book some advanced rider training.

Kind regards
Dave Milligan

 

Someone please post this up at Mt White...

 

How Farkin fast was he going? 100m or skidding takes a goddamn high initial
velocity...

As much sympathy as I feel for all the others involved, I can't help but
think this is an example of the ridiculous speeds that give the rest of us
such a bad name...

Or maybe the numbers involved have been inflated by adrenaline...

P
Been there, done that but mine lived (pure luck)

 

Bollocks. The perfect spelling (except for one giveaway); the perfect
grammar; the slimy sentimentality. Genuinely got this from someone you
really know, Dave? Doesn't say 'Made in America' to you at all?

 

Mate, I work up in Nth Qld with a ton of bike riders, all linked to clubs
everywhere. I'll see what they have to say.

Either way it's a pretty sobering tale, though it sounds a little like this
poor bvstard ended it all on his own.

Cheers,
Dave E (Sydney)

 

Or maybe not - perhaps he was the 34 year old motorcyclist ...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National...ccidents-in-Qld/2006/11/05/1162661535777.html

 

Can't say I feel sorry for him! Can feel for the other people involved
though. Mainly especially the two little kids, but then what do we
really know? Bugger all.

Maybe the message is we shouldn't ride with lunies in case they decide
today's the day. So forget the advanced rider training, I'd say all bike
riders should be qualified in psychiatry and give each other tests
before rides. Nah, doesn't work for me!

MikeH

 

Hardarse.

justAL

 

It's been a **** of a year.

 

Not to me. Not at all.

Says a lot about you though... "slimy"? Fer fuxxakes...

 

Whoops! How'd that foot get in your mouth?

 

Not wrong :-\


G-S

 

There's an understatement. :-/

 

sounds so much like what we came across on Sunday in the Snowies, guy
on his mates ZX14 way to hot into a corner, lots of brakes, lowside. He
was lucky, no tree, just lots of run off. He will be bloody sore for a
while but will ride again if he wants too and his mate doesnt kill him.

http://martyh.com/temp/crash1.jpg
http://martyh.com/temp/crash2.jpg

mh

 

Serves him right for riding with melty-head people!

 

See, that's what an extra hour of daylight does to you, eh Clem?

Bloody time bandits...

 

And I'm happy to report that as sucked in to believing we need an extra
hour of daylight in the evening as we are, we somehow still managed to
enjoy the last hour of daylight that evening in the beer garden of the
Khancoban pub reminiscing about the magnificent 420+km of alpine roads
we'd covered that day.

Nev..
'04 CBR1100XX

 

And it was all because of DST too.....
[sigh] If only we had DST so we could ride motorbikes and drink beer too!

 

Dave Milligan wrote:>

And I'm taking some heat for my surly response, so let's shake some
facts out of the tree. Your mate who sent you this claimed to be the
author, or your mate got it somewhere? And did your mate say *when* this
happened?

 

Yeah, I just chalked another one up too.