So yeah, I wrote a fake story first, you can scroll down if you want the real one...
It was really a pretty average drive, and by average I mean that I drove that exact route 6, 7, or 8 times a week, all on my cycle. It was average, that is, until i looked like this -
 |
| Rockin' the ER with my chiseled bod... Or my bloody bod, whatever, same thing. |
At 2:30 I was headed down to the church to give pastor Alvin a final evaluation for my internship at the church there when I noticed a white vehicle speeding up behind me. I slowed down a bit to let them pass and as they pulled out to pass, two of the occupants leaned out the windows. I could see this in my mirror and got pretty scared at this cause I thought they were going to try and hit me or knock me off the bike or something, but what happened was worse. They were all wearing black helmets with dark black visors so I couldn't see their faces and then it was kind of like The Fast and the Furious, except different. Anyway, the two occupants leaning out pulled out some pistols and shot out both of my tires! At this I went down immediately, got thrown from the bike and rolled across the pavement. As I was rolling I thought of two things, one - Thank the Lord for helmets, and two - If I can walk when I stop rolling I am going to force these guys to build their own coffins. Luckily, I couldn't walk (I say luckily because I am supposed to love my enemy, and that wouldn't have been very loving now, would it?), but I could see what these fellas were all about. Turns out that they were just professional motorcycle thieves! I saw them lifting my cycle into the bed of their pick-up and I first I was relieved because that meant they weren't kidnappers, which was my first thought. Then I remembered something, "My new sunglasses and clip!!" You see, I had just bought an exquisite pair of $10 sunglasses from Walmart and a beautiful $5 sunglasses clip/holder from Macy's! No one in their right mind would want to watch those two immaculate items to fall in the hands of dirty scoundrels such as these. I had to think fast, the cycle was almost onto their pick-up with my items inside. Suddenly I had a great idea. "WAIT!" I screamed as I laid there, broken and hurting from both the thought of not seeing my sunglasses again and the broken bones. "Wait, you can have all my money in my wallet if you will leave my bike here, for surely that would be a much greater loss to me." You see, I caught onto the fact that these were not just dirty scoundrels, but sadistic kleptomaniacs and were in the game to do as much damage to the victim as possible. So the ringleader of the trio struts over to me and grunts (clearly trying to mask his voice, think of Bruce Wayne in Batman), "Where is it?" I must have had a slight concussion because the first words out of my mouth were, "Where is what? Better yet, where am I!?" Then, quickly I recovered from my brief bought of amnesia and yelled, "Oh! My wallet! It's in my back pocket, right side!" He reached under my derriere, being much more rough with it than I would have liked, and pulled my wallet out. Just as he was about to open it I said, "Just take the whole lot for that would do even greater damage, you sadistic fiend!" He must have been pleased with this for he told his wolf-pack to set the motorcycle back on the road and stuck the wallet in his pocket without opening it. Then, showing the ultimate maturity in the situation, he stuck his keister in my face and shook it around, growling, " Na Na Na Na Na" in the weirdest sing-song voice you can imagine. He turned around and gave helmet a painfully playful kick, then they hopped in their pick-up and drove off. I laid there, staring up at the sky and, even amidst the searing pain, I smiled. Why did I smile? Because my wallet had no money in it, my license was in my motorcycle, and my credit card was expired. BADOOM, CHSSHH.
So I don't know where in the world that came from. I must apologize, I did start writing this with every intention of portraying the actual story when suddenly -BOOM- I was blindsided by creativity.
So here is the real account of my accident.
At 2:30 I was headed down to the church to give pastor Alvin a final evaluation for my internship at the church. Again, I drove this road 6, 7, or 8 times a week. It was a very normal drive for me and the scariest thing was usually a dog running out from a specific house. I is about a6 mile drive. A car pulled out behind me and I noticed that they were catching up to me. I was driving about 55-60, belting out The Sinner by Memphis May Fire into the confines of my full faced helmet, and focusing on trying to keep a steady speed. One thing that annoys me when I want to pass someone is when they don't use cruise control and speed up and down constantly. So here we are, cruising along, when I notice a minivan ahead of us, in my lane facing me, getting the mail. I said to myself, "Man, I hope this dude doesn't try to pass me here, for that will cause some dangerous maneuvering to be inevitable." Of course, he went to pass me, but I was expecting this, so I started to slow down but kept an eye on him, in case he slowed down too. It would not have been good if we were both trying to slow down or speed up and just hung out next to each other until meeting the van. Then I saw him slowing down too, so I picked up a little bit of speed to let him in behind me and that is what he did. Taking my mind back to the minivan, I planned to head around it in the left lane because that is what most people let you do when they are getting the mail. However, no sooner had I thought this than I noticed the van had backed up completely into the left lane. My next train of thought was, "I guess they are going to let me go around them in the right lane." I let off the throttle here because I was a little confused, but I assumed I had an open path around the van. As I got closer, suddenly the van took off across my lane into the driveway. If you look at this photo, you can see how close to the driveway I was when they decided to cross the road. At first I thought they were going to stop and still let me through on the right side, which is why my skid marks head to the right at first.
 | ||
| The van pulled into the driveway on the right and I hit the brakes, obviously. |
Next in the sequence of events was the fact that the van never did stop and I realized that if I kept trying to go to the right that I would collide with the van head on and I knew that was not desirable in any circumstance. This is where a bit of panic set in because I realized that I would have to swerve and my tires were already locked up, so down I was to go. I would imagine I was traveling between 50 and 60mph when I locked up my tires. So I swerved to the left as best I could and felt the bike sliding out from under me when, suddenly, (I may have let up on the brakes) the tires caught the pavement and flipped over (which is this next photo). We believe this may have been what caused the broken wrist, I was probably holding on pretty tight and when it threw me it wasn't very gentle.
 |
| The first mark is either where the bike flipped or hit, then it slid off to the left and ended up on the side of the road. |
So, here I was, flying through the air yelling "Frick!" I remember being worried about the white car behind me for I thought they had two options, hit the van or run me over. I hit the ground and started rolling. In the moment I thought about the times I have fallen snowboarding or skiing and rolled down the hill without being able to stop my forward motion and how similar this experience was, except I was on asphalt instead of snow and I was traveling a lot faster, so I rolled a lot longer. I also remember hitting my face on the ground and thinking I was very thankful for my helmet, I believe my exact thought was, "This helmet is nice." When friction finally overcame inertia I came to a rest on my stomach with my body on the road and my legs partly off the road. I laid still a little while and said three distinct words, "Frick, frick, frick." I slowly rolled over, uncomfortably, onto my back with my backpack at an awkward angle underneath me (my backpack contained my reflection paper, a book, and my jacket. I almost tossed my computer in there out of habit, but thank the Lord that I didn't). At this point I didn't feel any pain yet and as I rolled I saw my bike all banged up.
 |
| My bike got banged up a little. See the grass on the left side? |
Then I saw the white car and it was untouched and had to thank God that it didn't run me into me or the van. Then the pain started to hit as I saw people running toward me and I started to understand what happened. The first person to get to me was a nurse and she knew how to handle the situation, thank the Lord, and asked me questions, did vitals, and called my mother. At this point I thought that my arm or shoulder was broken because that was the only place I could feel pain. I was not looking forward to lying there waiting for the emergency response teams to get there but I felt like I hardly had to wait there at all. They even beat my mom to the scene! Thank you for your quick response. So by now I fully understood what happened and had recounted my experience to a couple people. For some reason they took one of my shoes off, but my mom snagged it, as well as my new $14 watch from Walmart and my phone to give Kendra a call. They loaded me up into the ambulance and I took my first ambulance ride. As I was in the ambulance the pain was still there and I sang O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing and prayed, "Lord, give me strength," over and over until we got to the hospital.
I still thought that my arm was broken (especially since one of the EMT's said there was a bulge on it...) and the doctor checked me over and finally I got some pain medication and almost hyperventilating. Then they ordered x-rays on my shoulder and elbow so I went to go get those done. As I tried to stand up I grabbed a railing to help me off the bed with my left hand and knew something was wrong, so I asked if they could x-ray that too and they agreed. Turns out that my shoulder was fine but my wrist was broken! Kinda funny, but also weird. My shoulder is just a little sore now, so I am glad it wasn't more serious. Then the doctor stitched me up (shoved a finger into my cut to fish out gravel, that felt weird!) and proved to me that my shoulder was not broken with a very unnecessary gesture, pulling my arm back behind my head causing excruciating pain. He was not very nice. I got a sling and we left the hospital by 5:30.
What a crazy day, and weekend. On Friday I went to Katie Boom's to play Bang! Saturday I helped mom and Megan get ready for Megan's bridal shower and went to David and Alyssa Maust's wedding openhouse. Sunday I preached and went to the viewing of my great-uncle Elmer. Monday I went to the funeral of my great-uncle Elmer and crashed my bike.
Crashing was something that I played in my head quite a lot since I am a new cycle driver, but I never really imagined it would happen to me. I also figured that since my dad has been driving for so long and nothing substantial has happened to him that I know of that I either wouldn't crash for a long time or not til he did. Haha. And even now it does not seem real. I remember thinking about Kendra as my mom went to call her and wondering how she would react, praying she would be ok. The nurse was cleaning my wounds at the time and stopped cause she saw a tear and thought she hurt me. The flashbacks are the worst, though. Laying in bed these last two nights and waking up from pain, they just kinda hit without warning and I can hear the tires squealing and see the van getting closer and closer in my minds eye. It isn't something I would wish upon anyone, and I know how blessed I am. It was scary, really scary.
Most people who get in a motorcycle accident at that speed can hardly walk away at all, let alone with only a broken wrist. There are so many different ways that I could have died there and hose thoughts keeping coming, I just thank God for my safety. I don't know why He let me through that with so little problems, but I'm not taking it for granted. He saved me, that day. I know He did. He blessed me in a way that I cannot repay, but that is just another small reason why I must sacrifice my life to Him. This may have put a dent in my college plans in the near future, but I am walking, and I am OK. God is good, even in hard times, and He has a way to make good out of bad situations, as He has shown me before. He doesn't cause the pain, but He teaches us through it. Thank you, Lord.
Guys, I am just blessed that I feel this good. I could go on and on about how God spared me, but it is difficult to put into words. Don't give up on God because He isn't going to give up on you. Like I said, He doesn't cause pain and suffering, that is what Satan, the devil, does, and for the time being Satan is the ruler of the world, I guess. But God can take what Satan does and make good things come from it, just don't lose faith. And who knows how many of Satan's plans get thwarted by God. God bless you all, just as He blessed me through this time.
Oh, by the by, I have been home the last two days watching Avatar: The Last Airbender (http://www.kumby.com/category/avatar-episodes/page/2/) and other non-active activities. I am doing very good, all things considered, not really sore at all, but I am still in some pain, mainly the wrist and my road rash, so your prayers are appreciated. Thank you. Make it a good day.
Here are some pictures of my cycle! My dad drove it home last night, pretty crazy that it still works pretty much fine! Also it is ironic how my last post on here included a picture of my cycle and talked about how I was going to take that to Virginia on Friday! So you have a decent 'before' picture there.
One more crazy thing! Those sunglasses and clip that I mentioned in my 'creative' story were real and when I went to look at the bike they were still on it! I took them off before the pictures though...
 | |
| I'm a hard core biker. |
