UPDATE! This is post to the HSTA list the owner of this motorcycle made. A very eye opening account. It just goes to show, even if you don't feel that hurt, you can be!
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I was enjoying a dry FOF this time after suffering through last years' monsoons. Ryan (my son) and I rode down from Tipton IN Friday morning and arrived in time for the welcome chili and dogs. Enjoyed renewing friendships with the Paducah KY group and planned a group ride to lunch for Saturday. We usually only ride in a group of 5-6, but Sat morning left in a group of 13 bikes altogether. The roads were great, a little damp starting out though. We got stuck in a town during their hometown parade that ate up an hour. Coming out of that town, an RC51 took the lead and misjudged a right-hander at the top of a hill, so we all went back and helped get him off to the hospital. We decided to ride in smaller groups, so at lunch we left at different intervals. I had decided to back off a little as I was getting fatigued in the afternoon (since it was 2 PM when we ate). Bike traffic, along with 4-wheelers was picking up and that added to the after-lunch-grogginess. We were starting to have fun on Hwy DD when we came upon 2 pickup trucks following one another. The group was getting spread out, and that was fine, and I passed the trucks before a curve. I made the mistake of looking back at the truck and by the time I re-focused on the curve I was upon it. I hit the brakes hard to slow, let off, and then leaned into the turn, which wasn't much of a turn, but I think I hit some gravel on the outside edge and went off. I high-sided and the bike flipped a couple of times and ended in the middle of the curve, in the middle of the road with small flames coming from around and underneath the battery box. By that time other bikes and vehicles had arrived, but we couldn't extinguish the flames. Needless to say, the oil caught fire next, then spread to the gas, then the tires and everything else. Quite a few people showed me kindness during that time, apologizing, feeling bad for me, but acknowledged that it was a "Kodak moment" and they had to get a shot of it!
I thought I had come through the get-off okay--just very sore, but it wasn't long before my body let me know I was not okay! I was taken to Salem to the hospital by the ambulance crew "from who knows where" that I thought was going to kill me before we got there. It was determined I had 5 broken ribs, a punctured lung and fractured left scapula. In case the lung deflated, they had no one there to operate, so I was transferred to St Louis by the best ambulance crew I could have asked for, and had prayed for. At Barnes hospital I was informed that I had lost 4 pints of blood internally and my spleen was ruptured and had to come out. This hospital did an excellent job of taking care of me and getting me ready to be dismissed Wed. I returned home in the car with my wife later that evening, thankful to be home.
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