A Lynnwood man was injured June 1 in a motorcycle accident 17 miles east of Tonasket on Highway 20, according to the Washington State Patrol.
Ronnie G. Hilliard, 48, was westbound about 11:20 a.m. when his motorcycle skidded on a curve and slid across the road, striking a guardrail on the eastbound shoulder, according to the patrol report.
Hilliard was ejected; the motorcycle came to rest in the road.
He was taken by aid car to North Valley Hospital, Tonasket, for treatment of lower back and right leg injuries, according to the report. Hilliard was wearing a helmet.
About $2,000 damage was done to the motorcycle."
What this article so carelessly omitted from their article is that it was raining heavily at the time of the accident. I also don't understand how they have an estimate of damage when I don't. I do know that the damage is primarily cosmetic and the bike is ride-able as proven by the fact that my son has ridden the bike a total of nearly 50 miles since the accident including the trip from the accident scene to the hospital and then from his home to mine to drop it off once I made it home from the hospital. Another point of note is that the WSP has informed me that I will receive a citation for 'excessive speed for conditions'. Again, I'm not sure what kind of telepathic powers they have, seeing as they told me this even before visiting the scene of the accident, and what, exactly defines 'excessive speed for conditions' when the conditions are such that you could not have known they exist before encountering them?
Oh well, on to the 'Rest of the Story':
This past weekend my son Casey, his future father-in-law Doug, best friend Mike, and myself all went on a motorcycle trip through Southern BC and Northern Washington as a pseudo 'Bachelor Party' for my son. Seemed like a much better option than going out drinking and watching scantily clad women pretending to like you. (another sign of the level of maturity)
The first 2 days were absolutely glorious! Full of beautiful scenery, great weather, and even greater roads. We headed north from Lynnwood on Friday morning crossing over into Canada at Sumas and continuing north to intersect Hwy 7 on the north side of the great Frasier River. We took 7 east to Hope as a better option than a 4-lane drone down 3. At Hope we picked up Hwy 3 east through Manning Park to Osoyoos. From there we continued east on 3 through the gloriously tight twisty road up the hill and through the farming communities to Hwy 33. We turned north on 33 for more delightful high speed sweepers up to Vernon where we got a hotel for the evening.
On Saturday we headed east on Hwy 6 from Vernon to the ferry that takes you over to Faquire. Hwy 6 from Vernon to the ferry ranks as the number 2 motorcycle highway by 'Destination Highways' in BC. The road is remote, full of well engineered curves, and beautiful scenery. It is worthy of the ranking.
From Faquire we continued on 6, first northerly to Nakusp and then southerly to New Denver where we turned, once again, east on Hwy 31A. 31A from New Denver to Kaslo is a short but beautiful stretch of highway through another remote and beautiful region with fantastic road conditions allowing for a very spirited riding pace. The highway ends in the wonderful little town of Kaslo where we had our lunch. What a lunch! I would have never expected such a culinary treasure in such a remote local. It really was tough deciding what to eat from the large and varied menu.... everything looked great and the soup and veggie sandwich that I ended up with was absolutely delicious.
After lunch we headed south on Hwy 3 to Balfour where we caught another ferry to cross Kootenay Lake and the little town of Crawford Bay. We continued south from Crawford on Hwy 3A, ranked number 1 in 'Destination Highways' list of BC highways. It was a great road but I'm not sure it was worthy of a #1 ranking. After our run down 3A we headed east on 3 to Hwy 6 and south to Ione Washington where we got another hotel for the night. As good as the food was in Kaslo was as bad as the food was in Ione. Old, cold chicken and beef enchiladas. Yum.....
As good as the weather was on Friday and Saturday was as bad as the weather was on Sunday. We gassed up in Ione under heavy rain and chilly temps. We headed east on 20 through Colville and Kettle Falls under heavy rain, stopping in Republic for a cup of coffee and to warm our chilled bones. As we left Republic the rain had eased to almost nothing and our attitudes improved dramatically. This was a short lived improvement. At about Waconda the skies began to dump a deluge upon our small group of motorcyclists. I have to admit that at this point I was a little tired of the cold rain and just wanted to get east to the Okanogan Valley and the hope of drier riding. Just a few miles past Waconda is a nice group of curves and the conditions warranted a conservative pace through the corners. One particular curve is especially sweet under nice conditions. Nice tight, right sweeper, sloping downhill with a really good camber to it. I entered the curve with plenty of reserve feeling conservative and as I came around the the curve and saw the corner exit I began to increase throttle as is the normal process for exiting corners. I felt that traction was excellent and had no doubt that I was well within speed for the conditions - right up until the moment that I felt the bike loose traction and fall on it's side! I must have hit an oily slick or something as the bike completely lost all traction without warning.
At this point the bike and I began our journey into the realm of slow motion, surrealism. As I was sliding along with my bike just ahead of me I was thinking "this isn't so bad" very non-violent and non-painful. Smooth, would be a good adjective. As I went down I knew that I would be crossing the oncoming lane but I could see that the way was clear of oncoming traffic. I also knew that I was sliding toward a guardrail and that I would impact it at some point but, due to the slow motion effect, I began to think that by the time I hit it I may have slowed down to the point that it would be a minor impact.... but then I heard the impact of the BMW hitting the guardrail and from that sound knew that we were still moving quite fast. Then the impact!
Violent, that would be a good adjective to describe the events that followed. While I was sliding along smoothly prior to the impact, tumbling and rolling ensued from impact on. The bike and I collided first and somewhere near that point I certainly collided with one of the guardrail posts. Another collision with the bike? Certainly more collisions with the guardrail and pain was a part of these impacts. I finally rolled to a stop, lying there for a moment trying to collect myself. I was lying in the road and I knew that it was a bit of a blind curve so I thought it might be a good idea to get out of it. I sat up - OK - I stand up - ouch - pain in both lower legs and my back. I am able to walk to the guardrail and sit on it. Casey runs up yelling "are you alright?" "damn it, talk to me, please". Shit! Poor kid got to see his dad biff it good and he was scared bad by it, you could see it.
I assured him I was fine but I hurt. At this point I could feel myself going into shock so I told Casey that I needed to lie back down for a few minutes. I was really feeling bad for my son knowing that it had to be traumatic and I was also trying to take stock of my injuries. I knew that my lower legs were injured but it was hard to tell how badly. I also knew that my lower back was very painful but I really thought that was just muscle wrenching from being tossed around. By this point a few vehicles had stopped and were coming to my aid with very concerned looks on their faces. I could see my BMW in the middle of the road and remember someone saying that we needed to get it out of the road. I was relieved to see that someone had moved up the road to warn drivers of the accident ahead in the blind curve. Good, I was definitely aware of my surroundings and the activities going on.
At some point I must have got back up and sat on the guardrail again because I remember a couple of my attendants asking me if I could walk while I was sitting there. I remember that one of the groups was a caravan of 3 vehicles from Canada on a Boy Scout outing. A lady from the group was talking to a local rancher asking if he would drive me down to Tonasket and the hospital in his suburban as their vehicles were full of camping gear. I told them I could probably walk but that both my ankles were hurting pretty bad so they helped me across the road to the suburban and loaded me in the back. Lots of people yelling instruction and advice concerning my care but my head was spinning. I remember yelling at everyone to just give me a few moments to collect my head and really take stock of the injuries. "Come on, give me a few minutes!" They thought I was trying to tell them I was fine and that I could just ride off and I understand their disbelief but all I really wanted to do was get my head clear and regain control of my consciousness.
At this point I was really beginning to come out of the shock and aware of all that was going on. I'm now lying on my back in the rear of a filthy suburban complete with wet saddle blankets and coils of chain for company. It didn't matter though because I also noticed that I was filthy, dirty from the wreck. Must have been the dirt along the guardrail. I remember Doug coming to the back of the suburban and I gave him a big thumbs up. Some dude ran up asking if any of the attendees had EMT training, trying to take over the whole event saying he had 15 years experience as an EMT. Started asking all sorts of questions to check to see if I was aware and shouting more orders at people.... go away! Where is that nice Canadian lady? Ahhh, there she is, helping me remove my helmet and gloves. As Keith (the owner of the ranch suburban) helped her get me as comfortable as possible for the trip down to the hospital I heard her say she was going to stay with me on the ride. Thankfully not Mr. EMT!
Things just got clearer from there on as we talked and joked all the way down to Tonasket. I remember talking about her kids, my kids, the fact that my son saw the accident, and how traumatic that must have been for him. She said "just think how you would feel if the rolls were switched", I said "let's just not even go there"! I talked about how this was definitely going to upset my marathon training plan and hopes for a BQ at Portland. She listened intently and even laughed at my stupid attempts at humor. I tell you, them Canucks are the friendliest and most helpful people I have ever met.
Damn, I sure did mess up our trip schedule. When I arrived at the hospital the staff got me on a back board, strapped me to it, and put this contraption on my head to keep me from moving my neck. I heard Casey outside giving them information about me and I yelled at him that he should get Doug and Mike out of there before it got late and they would have to ride in the dark. I was feeling really angry with myself at messing up what had been a totally fun trip right up to the point where I crashed. It was hard to focus on that though when all these medical personnel were having arguments over how to get me out of the suburban. It was almost comical.
In the hospital things got much better and more professional. The nurses were very attentive and took great care in removing my gear without destroying anything. My only complaint was the backboard and neck/head brace contraption. For a short time those things wouldn't be so bad but after almost 7 hours they become a torture device, slowing time to a mere crawl. My fault though for choosing to crash on a Sunday, in a small town, with no radiologist so all of the decisions had to be backed up by one in Seattle. Of course, I wasn't Seattle's high priority patient so this all took a lot of time. Amazingly through all of this I really didn't have all that much pain. Discomfort? Sure, but no real pain. As a matter of fact, I mentioned several times during the waiting that the pain I was feeling wasn't as bad as the pain I felt in the final miles of my last marathon and I did that for FUN!
Many X-rays and a CT scan later it was determined that I had broken my tibia and had compression fractures of the L2 and L4 vertebrae. All of these breaks and fractures appeared to be of minor concern to the doctor and apparently would heal without much attention from a physician and time alone was to be the prescription for recovery. They almost released me that evening but due to the distance from the hospital to my home they decided that they didn't like the idea of me traveling that distance so soon after the accident and decided to keep me over night for observations. Casey accompanied me to my new digs at the Tonasket Hospital and offered to stay there with me for the night. I convinced him that he was not going to be of any help to me there and that he should just get his butt home before it got too late. Since Doug and Mike had already left he finally agreed to leave too. God, I felt bad for that kid. He's definitely one of the best a dad could ask for.
Sue came over on Monday and picked me up for the long ride home. I was really worried about being stuck in a car for a 5 hour trip but I shouldn't have been. I really endured the trip with very minimal discomfort and I was still not taking any real pain medication other than Ibuprofen. We arrived at home at around 5PM and I was more than happy to be there! What a long couple of days.
Looking back I have a few observations: First - When traveling on rain slick roads you had better be riding VERY conservatively, almost expecting conditions to change immediately. When I hit that slick spot there was absolutely no time for me to react. Second - Proper gear and good fitness will save you and your family a lot of grief in even some of the worst of accidents. My riding pants were absolutely destroyed in the area where I impacted the guardrail post, If that had been of lesser armor my left hip would have been destroyed. No telling what else my gear protected me from. Third - Family and friends are irreplaceable! Ride carefully out there!
Cheers all!
Ron
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