Well we're back, most everybody else is still on the road I suppose. We were on the way to a great weekend, albeit wet, when Russell, one of our Okie group had a bad crash and broke his elbow and many ribs in the process. Luckily, he and my brother Daryl are EMT's and knew exactly what to do in this scenario. We were way the heck out in BFE but luckily cell phone reception was good and we were able to make a 911 call for help. The dispatcher sent an ambulance and the medivac helicopter, the ambulance arrived after about 55 minutes and the copter a few minutes later. Needless to say, this was a very long wait for everybody involved, especially Russell who was starting to have trouble breathing. We kept him on his good (left) side during the wait as he could not stand to be moved. When the copter arrived they brought out the transport board and we had to roll him over onto it while he groaned in agony. It is believed that during this move or shortly thereafter, one of the broken ribs punctured his right lung. So he ended up getting another dose of pain as the tube was inserted through his side to re-inflate (?) the lung. We were very thankful for the helicopter because the 20 or so miles of forest roads out of this area were terribly rough for someone in his condition and would have been pure hell in an ambulance. The accident happened 'bout 12:30 PM, and by the time we got him sent off in the copter, sent a someone back for the truck to come get the bike, rode back to the ranch and got to the hospital to see him it was 7:30 PM. He was actually in pretty good spirits, thanks to a healthy dose of morphine. Surgery was performed on his right elbow to bring all of the pieces back into place this morning and the chest tube has to stay in for 3-4 days, so he's there for a while yet.
The riding was as good as ever before and after the incident, yea we went riding while he was in surgery, but it was in his honor!
Somehow though, we kept ending up on LOT-A-WATA trail every time we turned around! Man, those creek crossings were murder. Many bikes were drowned on this trip for sure. Several of us (myself, Troy and Mike off the top of my head) had made the switch to full out RFS bikes from lesser capable bikes for this ride and we were as giddy as a schoolgirls about it. I know that I personally waited WAY too long to do this, my Motarded LC4 will probably not see the trail again after experiencing a true honest to goodness offroad RFS bike.
It was nice riding with all of our old buddies and meeting new ones this trip, I hope to ride with ya'll many times in the future.
I gotta say one more thing about the guys we rode with. Not one single person rode by the accident and kept going. Every rider stopped thier ride to lend thier support whether it was moral or otherwise to the situation without hesitation. Good folks IMO.
Later, Randy.
I wanna ride, I wanna ride, I wanna ride.......... No honey not you, step aside, the orange motorcycle behind you is the object of my desire!