davec719

Unfortunately some bugger “stole” my deer :(. The first 6 months it was certainly easier to take my “no more riding” decision as it was during winter AND I couldn’t walk for 3 of those months! Now, it’s definitely harder to take as the weather improves and you see more and more bikes. My wife has even said what if you just rode every now and again, but I just couldn’t do that. There’s no “in between” with my decision; it’s all or nothing, and I have to stick with “no riding”. Yet to decide what’s gonna fill the void, but I’ll find somethings. For now, as corny as it sounds, just glad to be alive and am able to live a normal life, well, as “normal” as the current situation allows :). Dave

This is a rather long post (my apologies) but I wanted to share my October 3rd 2019 accident (and what I went thru). I meant to post it a while ago but better late than never 😁. I rode to work October 3rd with ATGATT, including heated gloves. Next thing I remember is waking up in hospital on the 5th with no idea why I’m there. Apparently a deer decided to charge me 2 lanes converged to one and I was checking my mirror and looking over my shoulder to make sure no one was blasting down the outside of me. It was 300+ lb deer and when it hit me I went down with the bike on top of my right side. The only “obvious” issues were a bloodied l/h knuckle and penny size rash on my knee cap, but, of course the injuries were way worse than that since I had a head trauma (concussion and brain bleeds), the r/h pelvic bone was shattered, my r/h collarbone were broken in multiple places front and back, six broken r/h ribs, punctured and deflated right lung, broken sternum and broken tailbone. Based on what the cops, EMTs, nurses and doctors have all said to me, I was very very lucky. My gear definitely saved my life. I was faced with 3-4 months of rehab before I could go back to work, with up to another 9 months of rehab on top of that. 6 months later I have zero recollection of the accident so I can’t answer those “what could I have done differently” questions. However, I will say that based on the police pics, report and eye witness statements, I wasn’t speeding, was wearing good gear and the gear saved my life. Basically it was "the wrong place at the wrong time". Oh, the deer died at the screen of the crash. I was discharged from hospital October 22nd to continue rehab at home. I had 2 excellent in home therapists that really made be work and I can’t thank them enough. They certainly pushed me! Anyway, I spent another 6 weeks in a wheelchair before progressing to a walking frame for a month and then to a cane on New Year’s Eve. I returned to work January 21st (a few weeks ahead of schedule) and now only need to use the cane from time to time. A s for the bike, a 2015 Kawasaki Versys 650 LT, it was a write off. Insurance paid out $6,300 before deductible / $5,800 after. Won’t complain at this ‘cos I paid $4,800 for her in March 2019 and added almost 5,000 miles in that time. Also, the hard cases were OFF the bike at the time so I can sell those privately. In case you’re wondering why a Versys rider is part of this forum, it was a coin toss between the Versys and FJ-09, and a used Versys came on the market first. It was a screaming deal so just couldn’t say no. If I decided that the Versys just wasn’t working for me, I’d have upgraded to the FJ. Unfortunately the deer put paid to that ever happening! When I finally looked at my gear, jeez, what a mess, and that’s without the EMT’s cutting it off! So, I really hope the following gives the anti-ATGATT anti-helmet brigade some food for thought. Helmet (Scorpion EXO 500) – Trashed! Slight scratch on right side visor, scratches on the front, and major scratches on the left side, like a cheese grater was taken to it. If I wasn’t wearing a helmet, I wouldn’t be here to write about it! Boots (Tour master Solution) – Trashed! Left boot a few minor scuffs. Right boot badly scrapped on the outside of the foot; toe to heel. It did its job as although the leather wore through to the steel shank, it went no further. Leather Gloves (Leather, heated, First gear) - a few marks on both gloves, nothing major. Still no idea how I got the massive gouge between my 1st and 2nd knuckles. Heater wires all cut up by EMT’s. Riding pants (Tour Master Venture Air 2.0) Trashed! They did their job. Torn in a many places but never wore all the way through. Hip and knee armour did their job. Very worn where I slid on the road. One penny sized graze on my left knee. Considering the state of the pants, I’m amazed I had no injuries to my legs. Jacket (Tourmaster Transition 4) – Trashed! Ripped in several places and wore through the outer material. Back, right and particularly the left side of jacket. NO injuries to my left side whatsoever! Can’t believe it. Of course my right side was all smashed up from the deer hit, but no other marks on my body to indicate a major traumatic accident. I’m glad I’ve seen my gear. None of it is reusable/ salvageable. If nothing else it really hit home the “ATGATT” mentality I have. I can only imagine the road rash I’d have if I wasn’t wearing gear, but, if I wasn’t wearing gear, I’d be dead, on that score I have no doubt. The police and EMTs said the same, and the hospital staff all said I was so very lucky. Now on to the medical insurance company……. F*cking medical insurance. OMG!!!!! They initially decided to DENY every single claim ($400,000 and counting) for my 2 surgeries and rehab stay because, they say, and this is the best part, I hadn’t sent them back a 2 page survey form (just confirm you were in an accident, the insurance I have, any secondary ins, very basic stuff). Language was, as you can image, colorful. They “good news” was that my wife had completed and faxed it to them 3 weeks earlier via her computer, so I had a copy of the document, the day/time stamp, and the number is was sent to. Before I called them I resent it. An interesting conversation to say the least. They admitted they received BOTH faxes, but because different departments handle claim processing and the survey from, and the two don’t talk to each other, they didn’t know the form had been received!!! So because of that, all the claims were denied and they put me thru hell and back just to get this figured out because of their incompetence. But wait, there’s more....... During THAT conversation they also said that the claim is still denied because they need confirmation that my bike insurance hasn’t paid any medical claims, and, they need a copy of the police report. I explained that medical insurance isn’t a requirement in Colorado on auto policies, and as they can tell, it’s not part of my policy!!! That wasn’t good enough; they wanted it in writing from the bike insurance company. So, that all took a while (the letter and a copy of the Police report), because the auto insurance company said they couldn’t find the police report, even though they’ve paid out the claim and closed it. They assured me they’d find it and get me a copy, but after Thanksgiving, and still no copy of the police report, I was able to download a copy from a police website. O f course the medical insurance company refused to say if this is all they needed, so I was fully expecting all the claims to again rejected whilst they come back with “one more document” they need. Needless to say, they did L. This time it was from a 3rd party company they use to investigate all claims to make sure they can’t get another insurance company to pay out. In my case it was 100% clear cut. Single vehicle accident with a deer. As they were insistent on knowing who was the other party involved in the accident, I just wrote that it was Rudolph, an uninsured deer who dies at the scene of the accident. That was good enough for them! Eventually, all medical bills were paid out by insurance, so I was very thankful for that, but, OMG, what I had to go thru for that to happen was beyond ridiculous. My wife has to deal with insurance companies daily with her business so I have a new found respect for what she has to do!!!! When I was able to, I had a loooooong chat with my wife “about the accident”, as I still have zero recollection of what happened, plus the initial 5 days in hospital whilst I was “being repaired”. She wanted to “enlighten” me and make me aware of the huge amount of love and support I’d received from so many people. She showed me a pic she took of me in the ICU on a gurney with all manner of wires attached to me and tubes coming out of me. This was only about 4 hours after the accident. I must say I didn’t look too well in the pic and even have a hard time admitting it is really me........I just don’t remember it. I also had several brain bleeds that delayed the initial surgery as these needed to stabilize first. What I’ve learnt is that the brain scans didn't jive with how I was responding, meaning I was alert, communicative, and responding to questions from the doctors and nurses. Basically if they had just gone off the brain scans they would NOT have operated on me. Apparently there was a guy who had very similar brain scans to mine and he never regained consciousness and eventually died. Doctors were sure I’d go the same way! Glad they were wrong and didn’t just go off the scans! First surgery was to repair the right hand pelvic bone that had been shattered. Seeing the x-ray of the plate they put in made me shudder. All in it took 6 3/4 hours, though 2+ hours of that was because they “lost” one of the plate screws inside of me, and they had to find it. I was told it was a really messy but ultimately successful operation 😄. The clavicle plate surgery was delayed by 3 days due to internal fluid and bleeding, plus a blood count number had dropped from a 14/15 to an 8, meaning it was too low to operate. I’ve yet to find out what this “number” means, but they gave me 2 x 2 liters of blood that did bugger all. On the 2nd night / 3rd morning this blood count went back to its normal range, all on its own accord! My entire mood, so I’m told, had changed that day, and for whatever reason they believe that made a world of difference. My wife, who was by side these 5 days swears it was because she insisted they let me sleep instead of being woken every 30 minutes for this test or that test. The head trauma nurse agreed (she was, my wife says, absolutely brilliant). No complaints from me and probably helps explain my mood swing change mentioned above. Anyway, that allowed them to do the clavicle plate surgery, which also went very well (took a couple of hours). The purpose of writing all of this, aside from helping me understand everything, is that I was sooooo drugged up during this time that I have no memory of the pain I was in. However, more importantly, is what this put my wife through. She was at her wits end not knowing if I was going to live or die during this time, because the doctors themselves didn’t know. She stood by me and helped me get thru this, as she’s still doing today. Also, there’s my kids to think about. They still don’t know how close I was to not making it, especially during those initial 5 days after the accident. At the end of the day, the pain that my wife has gone through is worse than what I went thru, and as much as I love motorcycling, I love her more, so have made the decision to not ride again, even though I’ve been told I did nothing wrong and that it was one of those million to one accidents, and that my gear saved my life. Not riding again is not going to be easy, ever, but my wife and kids must come first. My pain at not riding is less than the pain I would cause them if I was to ride and have the same sort of thing happen again. I know my decision is very subjective but is the right one for me. I'm just happy to be alive, to have (almost) fully recovered and be able to walk without a cane. I’ll stay a member of this forum as I love motorcycles. Even though I never got to own a FJ / Tracer, I’ll contribute from time to time and I do take great enjoyment from reading all the posts. Meantime, safe riding everyone and ATGATT…….please! Dave

When I was riding (still need to post why I’m not, it ain’t good 😪), I’d either wave or nod, with nodding my preference as I’m From the U.K. Dave