How it all started

Late in February of 2009, I was riding home on my motorcycle in Tempe, Arizona. Tempe is a college town, and bikers, both with and without motors, have to be very aware of their surroundings. I had just spent the last hour teaching photography to some intellectually challenged adults to help them get the most out of life. They are wonderful people and I was feeling pretty good about the smiles on their faces as they learned the nuances of taking pictures.

Suddenly, as is often the case, a car appeared out of nowhere, directly in front of me. Ok .. not nowhere. Let's pause that image for a second so that I can clarify. The driver of the car had just left a gas station and chose to enter my lane of traffic, right in front of me.

My first thought is 'Crap!!!!' or a similar phrase. My second thought was 'this is going to hurt' as I pushed the bike over to the right and tried to avoid the car. As Maxwell Smart used to say, 'Missed it by that much'. Or rather, in my case, I didn't miss it by 'that much'.

My left foot decided it would be the perfect bumper between a 4,000 pound car, and a 450 pound bike carrying a 260 pound rider. It did it's job perfectly, I literally bounced off the car and was able to keep the bike upright. I coasted over to the side of the road and up on the sidewalk, out of traffic. Unfortunately, a foot is not designed to be a bumper and after a quick check to make sure it was still attached and pointing in the right direction, decided that the resulting pain was a pretty good indication I shouldn't put any weight on it. And that wearing motorcycle boots is a very good idea. I was right about both, but more about the foot later.

Now .. picture this. A large man is sitting on a motorcycle on the sidewalk. He calmly turns the engine off, all the while making some pretty loud moans and groans as he realizes, now what. How do you put the kickstand down on the left side of a bike when your left foot is probably broken or crushed? I didn't even try. Instead, I lowered the bike slowly to the right, balancing on my right leg and using it to keep the bike up as long as I could. And then just crawled off it, laid on the ground, and waited for the ambulance to show up.

Which it did just as I was calling my lovely wife, who had joined me teaching photography and left just before I did. But I had to stop for gas, so she was about 10 minutes closer to home than I was. 'Honey', I said as she answered the phone. 'Could you do me a favor?? I hurt my foot, could you come and get me?' My hope was she would think I just sprained my ankle at a gas station and wouldn't panic. I was mostly right, she didn't panic until she got to where I was and saw two police cars and an ambulance.

By this time the talented EMTs had loaded my butt into the ambulance, no easy feat I'm sure and were attempting to give me an IV as my wife came in through the side door. The closest EMT assured here I was OK, which probably just meant I wasn't lying there bleeding to death with bones sticking out out of places they aren't supposed to. But my wife is not only beautiful, she is also smart and could tell I wasn't in any immediate danger of dying so said the only thing a caring, loving wife should say. 'I told you to be careful!!!!'. We all laughed and got back to work getting me set for the trip to the hospital.

Where the real story begins....