Caz
Junior Member
So here I am, casually riding to work on Thursday morning, freezing cold, peak hour traffic, I take my usual route, nodding at fellow bikers I share the morning commute with regularly, everything is just dandy. I take the freeway entry ramp and low and behold, the freeway is chockers with bumper to bumper chaos.
Over the bridge and onto the onramp, slowly edging my way into the traffic, I see a gap and slot into it, a fellow biker I travel with nearly every morning goes past me, still in the onramp lane, trying to edge his way into the traffic on the freeway, I look up and see him about 3 cars ahead of me, just were the onramp finishes and the emergency lane begins, suddenly the bike flips up in the air, rear wheel flying up and over, flipping the bike multiple times end to end, **** and disaster everywhere.
Survival instincts kick in, a quick head check, and I'm now pulling up in the emergency lane, parked the bike and running to the fellow sprawled out on the road not moving. I'm waving my arms and screaming at the people that have pulled up "do not remove his helmet"
The woman that got to him first was arguing with me, "I need to remove his helmet to check his airway" she kept saying to me, I refused to allow her to remove his helmet, he was breathing, I could see his chest inflating and deflating with big heavy breaths, slow breaths, but still, he was breathing. I got down onto the ground and looked at his face, blood all over one side, he was unconscious, but alive. A couple of other people stopped and directed traffic around the scene until the coppers arrived. The battle with the woman about removing his helmet continued until phone contact was established with the ambos and they confirmed what I had been saying all along, do NOT remove his helmet unless you need to administer CPR, which we obviously did not need to do since he was still breathing.
The bloke eventually comes too, phew, thats a start.
He goes into panic mode and tries to get up, it took 3 of us to keep him down. Eventually he stopped fighting us and just accepted his situation. A few minutes passed and he felt ill, frantically he wanted to remove his helmet, at this point the ambos on the phone said it was his call if he wanted to take it off, so I got two of the people to stablise under his neck and support his head while I pulled apart the chin straps and gently pulled and manouvred the helmet off his head and then put a couple of thickly folded jumpers under his neck to support his head.
The police and ambos are onsite now and have taken control of the situation. I am going into shock by this stage, I can feel the adrenalin pumping, I pace up and down, all I could do was mutter to myself, ****, ****, ****....
60 hours later, the visions of the bike flipping and debris going metres into the air right infront of me haunt me, every spare moment I have seems to be riddled with the constant replay of the event.
What really amazes me is not one other vehicle was involved, just the bike. Luckily the traffic was only going at a snails pace or he very well might have been ran over by the cars following along behind, or by me, being 2 cars behind when it happened.
I've tried to figure out what went wrong, I've discussed it with the guys at work, and the only thing we can think happened was either the rear lost traction on the white line as he was merging into the lane then suddenly grabbed again once off the white paint, spitting the back of the bike up and over, and over again. Or... and this is what my initial thought was, he tried to slip into a gap, the traffic was not really allowing him in, but he forced his way in, then the car in front has braked hard and he has grabbed a fist full of front brake and done a stoppie that went too far sending him over the bars into a violent tumble.
I am angry, angry at the people that wanted to remove his helmet.
I am in the process of talking with the road/safety authorities about trying to organise some sort of campaign to educate the general public about the dangerous practice of attempting to remove the helmet from an accident victim.
I have been telling everyone I come across about my plight, and asked them to tell at least 5 people.
I presume it is the same in other countries, the general puplic have no ****ing idea, so, please people, make an effort to educate as many people that you can about the dangers re helmet removal, don't do it unless CPR is to be administered.
Anyway, thats my little bit of excitemnt for this week.....
what's going on in your lives? anything as exciting as watching a Beull explode into a million pieces right infront of you?
Over the bridge and onto the onramp, slowly edging my way into the traffic, I see a gap and slot into it, a fellow biker I travel with nearly every morning goes past me, still in the onramp lane, trying to edge his way into the traffic on the freeway, I look up and see him about 3 cars ahead of me, just were the onramp finishes and the emergency lane begins, suddenly the bike flips up in the air, rear wheel flying up and over, flipping the bike multiple times end to end, **** and disaster everywhere.
Survival instincts kick in, a quick head check, and I'm now pulling up in the emergency lane, parked the bike and running to the fellow sprawled out on the road not moving. I'm waving my arms and screaming at the people that have pulled up "do not remove his helmet"
The woman that got to him first was arguing with me, "I need to remove his helmet to check his airway" she kept saying to me, I refused to allow her to remove his helmet, he was breathing, I could see his chest inflating and deflating with big heavy breaths, slow breaths, but still, he was breathing. I got down onto the ground and looked at his face, blood all over one side, he was unconscious, but alive. A couple of other people stopped and directed traffic around the scene until the coppers arrived. The battle with the woman about removing his helmet continued until phone contact was established with the ambos and they confirmed what I had been saying all along, do NOT remove his helmet unless you need to administer CPR, which we obviously did not need to do since he was still breathing.
The bloke eventually comes too, phew, thats a start.
He goes into panic mode and tries to get up, it took 3 of us to keep him down. Eventually he stopped fighting us and just accepted his situation. A few minutes passed and he felt ill, frantically he wanted to remove his helmet, at this point the ambos on the phone said it was his call if he wanted to take it off, so I got two of the people to stablise under his neck and support his head while I pulled apart the chin straps and gently pulled and manouvred the helmet off his head and then put a couple of thickly folded jumpers under his neck to support his head.
The police and ambos are onsite now and have taken control of the situation. I am going into shock by this stage, I can feel the adrenalin pumping, I pace up and down, all I could do was mutter to myself, ****, ****, ****....
60 hours later, the visions of the bike flipping and debris going metres into the air right infront of me haunt me, every spare moment I have seems to be riddled with the constant replay of the event.
What really amazes me is not one other vehicle was involved, just the bike. Luckily the traffic was only going at a snails pace or he very well might have been ran over by the cars following along behind, or by me, being 2 cars behind when it happened.
I've tried to figure out what went wrong, I've discussed it with the guys at work, and the only thing we can think happened was either the rear lost traction on the white line as he was merging into the lane then suddenly grabbed again once off the white paint, spitting the back of the bike up and over, and over again. Or... and this is what my initial thought was, he tried to slip into a gap, the traffic was not really allowing him in, but he forced his way in, then the car in front has braked hard and he has grabbed a fist full of front brake and done a stoppie that went too far sending him over the bars into a violent tumble.
I am angry, angry at the people that wanted to remove his helmet.
I am in the process of talking with the road/safety authorities about trying to organise some sort of campaign to educate the general public about the dangerous practice of attempting to remove the helmet from an accident victim.
I have been telling everyone I come across about my plight, and asked them to tell at least 5 people.
I presume it is the same in other countries, the general puplic have no ****ing idea, so, please people, make an effort to educate as many people that you can about the dangers re helmet removal, don't do it unless CPR is to be administered.
Anyway, thats my little bit of excitemnt for this week.....
what's going on in your lives? anything as exciting as watching a Beull explode into a million pieces right infront of you?
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