Bambi Happens

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you may be swept off to."
Bilbo Baggins

Bambi Happens

posted 06/08/2006
A beautiful day on the island last Friday and I had a boat job to do at the far end at Cape San Juan. It was the end of the day and I decided to drive home first, clean up and grab a motorcycle, for the trip down and back. I choose the 1974 BMW R90S I had recently purchased for the drive. This is a classic bike and a perfect ride on a nice spring day I showered and changed out of my dirty work clothes thinking of my late mother's admonishment to always put on clean underwear before you travel because "you just never know what will happen!" Little did I know!

I rode to the Cape and did the dock watch on a customer's boat: check oil, mooring lines, bilges, start the engines and run them until warm and log it in. On the way back I’m motoring along the open areas in American Camp National Monument and enjoying the warm breeze and view but as I approach the treed area by 4th of July Beach I start to slow down. It’s "deer-thirty" and this area is a National Park so no hunting means that the motor vehicle is the top of the food chain. Deer adapt well to open areas and suburban growth and have multiplied well beyond historic levels of a hundred years ago.

I’m aware of this and I’m also aware that deer/vehicle collisions spike in September and October with another high in May and June. Dusk is the worst time. It’s a little early in the day but still I start scanning the roadside and slowing as I head into the treed area.

Suddenly, there she is! About 120 lbs, she is across the road on my left, walking into the brush. I slow to 40 and with my hand on the brake watch carefully. She’s still walking into the woods but suddenly, as I pull abreast of her, she spins and in one leap nails me.

I have no time to react. She is low and in mid-air when she impacts the left side of the bike and me. I’m hoping to keep the bike upright but quickly realize that that will be hard to do as I am flying through the air ahead of it.

I land, skid, and then start to roll in the classic sky-ground-sky-ground repeat scenario. The ditch is approaching and I only can hope that the coefficient of friction for the bike is greater than it is for the rolling human body and that it will stop before I do. I slice into the brush like a human torpedo and finally come to rest...The bike has stopped on the road but at the moment I’m busy trying to breath, the wind is knocked out of me and I hurt...really HURT!

Forget that old saw that it doesn’t hurt until later. It hurts during the impact, it hurts right after the impact, it hurts during the skid and it really hurts when you stop moving!

I’m face down in the brush and dirt and not moving, just sending messages to body parts to see if they answer. It’s peaceful there after the commotion of the crash, quiet, and there is no traffic so I just lay there for a few minutes hoping that someone will drive by and call an ambulance and haul my aching body out of the bushes. The bike and the deer are out in the road in different lanes so I figure that’s as good as a flare to stop traffic and so I just keep waiting...and waiting.

Finally I decide no ones coming anytime soon. This is the quiet end of the island at a quiet time of the day so that if I want a rescue, it’s gonna be a "self rescue".

I start crawling out. Slowly, very slowly because I can’t get up but I’m doing a good job of crawling to the road and then I collapse just as (oh the irony!) two mopeds come around the corner. No cell service so I ask if they can go to the Park headquarters and call an ambulance. OK, he can only go 20 mph but that’s faster than I can crawl so I’m good with it. The moped-er that stayed behind pulls Bambi off into the ditch She was dead on impact.

I finally recover enough to stand and like any self-respecting biker stagger over to see if the bikes OK. The front fender is torn in two, the fairing shattered, the tank dented and the valve cover scraped all the way through and drooling oil. To an insurance company, it’s definitely totaled but I’ll just put it away and make a long-term winter restoration project. That settles the question of whether or not I’ll repaint it too!

The other moped comes back with a car following. Headquarters was closed but the driver in the car offered to help. I ask for a lift to the medical center but change my mind and have him drop me off at a friend's where we all gather for beer and motorcycle stories on Friday night. I ask if they can get the bike for me and then if someone can drive me to the center.

His wife calls 911 to have them waiting for me but they want to speak to me first. Seems that they can’t call a doctor to the center unless there is an ambulance to pick me up. Adrenaline is a wonderful painkiller but I realize that mine is wearing off and I really want to get to town so I tell them that I’m in pain, bleeding but currently sitting in a car and I don’t intend to stand up and wait for an ambulance. I tell them that I’ll be there in 10 minutes.

At the center I’m whisked into a wheelchair and into an examining room. The nurse, a friend whose husband rides a BMW starts cleaning the gore off of me. "What’s that!" she exclaims pointing at a large brown stain on my left pants leg.

"I hope its deer poop." I say. And it is. It matches the deer poop all over the left side of the bike.

She keeps scrubbing (ouch!!!) and fits me with the usual hospital robe many sizes too small. These are designed to keep you from running away by being so scandalously small that standing would reveal all to the world. The doctor examines me and x-rays me, bad sprain but nothing broken, and my Fearless Wife arrives. I’m glad nothing was broken because I’m concerned that she would just send me back for a replacement but nope, she decides to keep me. She says that she’s almost got me housebroken and doesn’t want to start over.

I can also tell that she’s really relieved to only find cuts, scrapes, and bruises. Lots of cuts, scrapes, and bruises! One ankle has swollen to grapefruit size, both knees, a hip, both elbows and shoulders are missing a fair amount of skin and some meat. The next few days are not going to be pretty but the pain killers are kickin in now so I can do a little post-accident evaluation.

The bikes a real mess! Extensive damage on the left side and as I said an insurance company would total it but I’ll just make a frame up restoration next winter's project. It’s a classic and worth the effort and money. The only part not available is the gas tank but a friend bought a BMW just like this yesterday and it came with... you guessed it: an extra gas tank! We’ve already talked and a sale is easily possible so the bike will rise again.

Did I do anything wrong? I was at or below the speed limit. I had my hand on the brake. I was expecting the deer. I saw her in advance. I slowed down even more but she was just too bloody fast!

I also wasn’t counting on a behavior that some Internet research yielded about deer. When they are moving to go to feed in the evening, they’ve left their safe cover and if startled or threatened they will turn and sprint right back to where they came from, taking the same path to safety that they came on. This is good strategy for predators but deadly if a car spooks them.

This explains the numerous stories I’ve heard where "the damn deer spun and ran right back into me!" Deer really aren’t suicidal, just creatures reacting to a preset path when startled. Knowing this, I will slow almost to a stop when deer are present in the future.

How about my gear? I had on the best helmet and gloves and an armored riding jacket. Above the waist I was battered but not too badly torn up. I had only denim Bib overalls below the jacket but surprisingly they didn’t even have holes in them even though my legs did! The helmet was hardly touched but the jacket was in tatters on the sleeve. It did its job though I think a tighter fitting leather jacket would have performed better. My hips, knees and feet will take a few extra weeks to heal. Even with the best protective gear though, a 900cc motorcycle and the human body are poor weapons to hunt deer with.

A big thanks to all who helped. Everyone was great though the irony of mopeds being my first responders wasn’t lost on me. No one drove by without offering to help. The medical center folks were great too. No long wait, everyone stopping by to say "Hi" This caring and connectedness is one of the reasons that I like living in a small town. Time to sign off for now though, take another pain killer and cuddle up with a good book...or movie...or sleep. Yeah, that last one. That sounds best right now.

- The Old Squid

The Old Squid's email address is: oldsquid@sanjuanislander.com

news@sanjuanislander.com

ABOUT US | ADVERTISING INFO | CONTACT INFORMATION |