An Arai Wes Cooley Replica saved my life.
Regular readers know that I love motorcycles. But motorcycles don’t love me back — they don’t love anybody; they are capricious, dangerous things that will snuff out your life in an instant or leave you in physical torment for the rest of your life with little cause — and often for absolutely no rational reason at all. For all the gushing motorcycle fanboi-ism I spew here on the ‘Verse and over at Tanshanomi.com, I am clearly aware that motorcycles kill and maim. As beautiful, elemental and enjoyable as motorcycles are, there is something inherently perverse, perhaps immoral about a machine that effectively utilizes the rider’s body as an exoskeleton. That’s a difficult dichotomy to wrap my head around some days. And May 20th is the hardest day of all.
This Friday I will, for the 25th time, observe Free Day. It’s my own private holiday — a dissonant anniversary that is a reason to celebrate life and be thankful for God’s good grace, as well as a reminder of a painful and scary time that still impacts me and my family. It marks the day my life could of — and perhaps should have — ended. Every day since then has been an undeserved bonus, a free gift from God I hadn’t earned.
The morning of Monday, May 20, 1985, dawned clear, cool and bright in the Twin Cities. I climbed aboard my newly hopped-up Honda FT500 Ascot and headed to my job at Burnsville Motorsports. As I sat waiting to make a left turn from County Road 18 onto Hwy 13, my boss shot through the intersection in front of me aboard his 500 Interceptor at hyper-legal speed. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could catch him before we got to work? The light changed and the chase was on.
A short time later, I was lying at the bottom of an embankment, a steady stream of blood from my nostrils soaking into the lining of my helmet. I wasn’t sure how I’d ended up there, and I’m still not completely sure to this day. I remember watching the 85 MPH speedo get pegged, then briefly looking down at the White Brothers sticker on the top of the fuel tank. I also remember grabbing the brakes in a moment of fear, but I can’t tell you a thing about what was immediately before or after that vivid flash of panic. That moment of my life exists as a self-contained little island in my memory, yet I clearly remember how real and horrifying it was.
I would spend the next hour or so drifting in and out of consciousness. I can only remember short snippets of that morning:
“My name is Amy and I’m an EMT…”
“Don’t cut my jacket.”
“We’re going to do whatever we need to do to take care of you.”
“Peter, can you tell me what day of the week it is?”
“Monday.”
“What’s the date today?”
“Um…May 19th.”
“You’re one day off, but that’s good enough.”
“What happened?”
“I didn’t make the turn.”
“There was no turn there; you were on a straightaway.”
When I came around fully I was in a CT scanner at St. Francis hospital in Shakopee. I had one hell of a headache. My nose bled on and off the rest of the day, and my urine was bloody for another day after that. My lungs were badly bruised and my inhalation volume was maxing out at about a third of their normal capacity. More ominously, two vertebrae had multiple fractures in each. I could wiggle my toes, but the lower half of my body was numb and tingly until late that evening, when the swelling in my spinal cord subsided and I was moved from the ICU to a regular hospital room. I had truly dodged disaster by the slimmest of margins.
I was 21 years old, young enough for my body to recover quickly and completely. Even so, I would sleep for the next month leaning forward in a chair, resting my head on a pillow on the kitchen table. Lying down flat was painful, and twisting my torso to roll over or get out of bed caused spasms that put a dangerous strain on my fragile, healing vertebrae. For six weeks I did breathing exercises three times a day with a little machine that measured the efficiency of my lungs.
As much as that accident affected me, it also was hard on my family. I had been discharged from the Army only a few months previously and was living back at home with my parents. My mom said to me later, “It was more traumatic for us than it was for you. By the time you knew what was going on, you knew you’d be okay. When I got the call from your father, he could only tell me that you were expected to survive, not what condition you’d be in. Driving to the hospital, not knowing, was horrible.”
I don’t believe that it’s possible to prevent all accidents, but I made a lot of bad decisions that contributed to that critical moment:
- I had no formal rider training;
- I didn’t know the limits of my machine;
- I had not practiced making deliberate, abrupt maneuvers;
- I had not developed a mental plan for how to deal with emergency situations;
- I wasn’t paying very close attention (at 90+ MPH, why the hell was I looking down to admire a stupid tank decal?);
- I was riding way, way too fast;
- I was not riding for myself, I was riding to impress somebody else.
There were a couple of things I did right. First, I wore the proper gear, including a quality full-face helmet that most certainly saved my life. Secondly, I kept living; I didn’t crawl under the bed and hide for the rest of my life. Thirteen months later I was roadracing a vintage Bultaco.
Today I still ride, but am am much more serious about safety. Instead of exploring the edge of the envelope out on the road, I save that for rider training sessions and then aim to stay close to the middle of it when I ride.
Observing Free Day reminds me that life is a fragile, priceless thing that should not be treated carelessly. Investing myself in the lives of my wonderful wife, my parents and family and the other people I love is worth more than any hobby, any sport, any inanimate object. I’ve taken a couple of breaks from riding over the years, to keep it all in perspective and make sure that the risks I’m taking are worth it. I’ve discouraged a lot of my friends from riding because their casual, sunny attitude about getting a bike told me that they had no idea what sort of dragon they’d be dancing with. It’s still a point of contention with my mom, who even now would rather not hear anything at all from me about motorcycles, which I respect.
I sincerely hope I am never permanently injured or killed on a motorcycle, but should my ticket for this free bonus round get punched my next time out, I hope it’ll be of some solace to know that I accurately perceived and willingly accepted the risks. Free Day is my reminder that no matter how my life goes from here on out, I’ll always be more blessed than I deserve by at least a 26-year margin.
And, since I didn’t get the chance to say it at the time — Thanks, Amy.
[Image Source: ebay.com]
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