Old Bike Pics from the first wreck.

It was a hot morning in August 2015. I opted to not wear my jacket or gloves but I did wear my helmet, boots, and jeans. As I was exiting Interstate 20 by the West Loop 250 entrance, the truck in front of me had no tail lights working and had slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting someone who ran the yield sign on the service road. Going from 75 down to a dead stop on a bike isn't too hard, but throw in a slick patch on the road, and a semi who blew past me as I exited onto the off ramp at the same time and my bike immediately started to slide. I aimed for the caliche and the next thing I knew I was on my back looking up. Out of the peripherals to the left I saw my bike bouncing end over end and I barely had enough time to scream "F**K!" as the tail end slammed onto my helmet and the bike stood on it's end on my head. A pair of safety glasses were the only thing that saved my skull from getting brained by whatever piece of metal to which I can only assume was the passenger peg that entered into my visor space. As the bike flew off of me, I rolled over and propped myself with my forearms holding me up to let the blood pooling out of my nose and mouth to drain while I just screamed for a minute or two. The work truck behind me stopped and ran over with a first aid kit and asked "Hey man are you alive?" I responded asking about the bike which was magically still running and after a few minutes was able to stand. I tried moving around and blacked out three or more times...who is counting....

I ended up calling my work first and having them send a shop tech out to help me out. We bent my highway bar out and picked up the broken parts of the bike and loaded them into the saddlebags. I drove the bike the last mile to work and parked it at work and the work forced me to go to the ER. Turns out a Safety Company doesn't play games even when you have an Exchange migration to do!

     I walked into the ER with my wife (she was super irate and concerned at the same time..weird) after getting some whataburger and dropping the kids and the bike off (we trailered it) at the mother in laws house. As I walk in with my helmet and all, they see the blood and ask if I am ok. I told them I had been in a motorcycle accident and laid my bike down. They were skeptical and said "Waht, like 10-15 mph?" I said "No..more like 60-65ish....I cant really remember" and the look of shock was hilarious! I got forced down into a wheelchair and run back as an emergency trauma victim. Lots of MRI and CAT scans later and some glorious amounts of liquid stitch for my wounds, I was released. They didn't seem to understand that being knocked around and blown up in Iraq had kind of made me used to high levels of trauma. Who knew..right?

TLDR; Wear your PPE kids. And if someone can get me a line to anyone at DUKE helmets...I'd much appreciate it. I want to thank them personally for not cheaping out and building a solid affordable helmet.