September 21st 2008 is a day I'll remember for the rest of my life. A lot of people tell me I should have died that day.
I've been riding for about five years, have considerable track time, and about 30k miles of riding under my belt. I've completed two MSF safety courses and have experienced US Route 129 and lived to tell about it.
At about 2:30pm September 21st, 88 Degrees outside and clear skies, I was riding home from a friend's house. I've taken that same route multiple times before, but on this particular day my trip would stop at an on ramp and be redirected to a hospital bed. I had on full racing attire (Komodo K-XP full racing suit, Sidi racing boots, icon gauntlet gloves, and a Shoei X-11 helmet). As I entered the on ramp, going about 45 mph, I shifted my weight over and got settled in for the corner. When the time came to initiate the turn, I pushed right and started to lean. Immediately the front tire washed out and I found myself airborne with the motorcycle completely out from under me. I had enough sense to make it to my backside, landing on my right hip. I slid about thirty feet and impacted the guardrail feet first, about 20 degrees from perpendicular to the guardrail. The last thing I remember was the loudest sound I've ever heard.
Both of my legs were wrapped underneath my upper body, and my upper body was wrapped around one of the vertical supports for the guardrail, says one of the witnesses. I was knocked unconscious immediately and didn't wake up until the ambulance arrived several minutes later. I woke up to a witness slowly opening my tinted visor, probably afraid of what she might see. She told me to be still, but since I couldn't feel anything from the middle of my back down, I thought I might be okay. I took a quick inventory of my ability to blink and look side to side, and removed my helmet. I didn't have the strength in my neck to hold my head up. That's about the time the EMT yelled at me not to move. He asked me if I could move my legs. I said "Yep" and thought I was moving them. With a disgusted look on his face he told me he had to cut my suit off of me and take me to the hospital. I told him he was crazy. He immediately pulled out his scissors and slid them down my collar. I jerked away quickly
and he urgently said, "Does that hurt?" I said, "No, it cost me a thousand dollars!" He didn't see that humor and continued cutting off the suit. At that point they started putting drugs into me and I don't remember much until the ambulance ride, hitting every speed bump and pothole on the way to the hospital.
I broke my left femur in eight places, my right femur in three places, broke my left kneecap in half, compound fractured my right tibia and fibula, broke two vertebrae in several places, and cracked several ribs. My left knee suffered the worst of the damage. I tore everything in my left knee except the main nerve running through the center of my knee and two hamstring tendons.
Thanks to the Komodo F-XP racing suit I was wearing, all skin was intact around my left knee. I had zero road rash. The doctors later told me that had my left knee been exposed to the road, they would not have been able to operate on it due to the severe risk for infection, and it would have had to be amputated from the knee down. Further, the doctors told me that had the suit not been there to hold everything together, the bottom half of my left leg would have been ripped off upon impact, and I would have bled out and died in a matter of minutes on scene. A price tag could never be put on my leg, or my life. Therefore, the product that saved them is eternally priceless. God let me live, and his medium by which my life was saved was my
Komodo K-XP racing suit.
