Tuesday, October 23, 2007

I Don't Want To See This

Mrs. Surf and I were relaxing and having a nice conversation on our patio last night when suddenly a familiar sound occurred. We live on a bad curve and about once or twice a month you hear someone not quite make the turn and hit the curb or the subdivision sign across the street or if they double correct they flip and lay up against the house across the road.
This was a little worse. There was a Spack.... a grunt.... sparks...... a loud "PoW"...then a Boom!!!
I knew it was bad before I made it around the house. I shouted over my shoulder for her to call 911 and I hurried to try to help thinking the whole way that the car must be on fire.
When I got around the house there was no car. There was a motorcycle and it was slammed in to an unforgiving stop sign that held it's ground. The rider was not near the bike.
"I don't want to see this" was all I could think when suddenly I saw him. He was walking back up the hill towards his bike. Wow....walking. I asked him if he was Ok and he said "Yes". I told him he might want to sit down but he declined and came on up to the bike. He had some bad cuts and he looked like he had been on the losing end of a 12 round boxing match but he was very lucky.
His family came and got him after the police were convinced that he really was OK.

I pieced together the noises and I think they were:
Spack: Bike hits curb
Grunt: Rider hits ground
Sparks: Obviously the bike scraping the pavement
Pow: Bike hitting the pole
Boom: This I am unclear on but I think the rider hit the neighborhood brick wall sign across the road from the sign.

A friend of mine's brother got killed on this curve. There was another bike that lost it a few months ago as well and he was super lucky. He flew in to the woods and emerged very dizzy but OK as well.

I feel unprepared to handle the situation every time it happens and have no idea what to do to change that.

Thank God he was OK.