Watching your 6. For your safety, please read

How many times do we stop at a light and grab our phones to check messages, emails or the latest dumpster fire thread on TW?

How many times do we take our eyes off the road and lose focus on what’s happening around us?

This became a very hard reality for me recently.

I spent the Christmas week with family down in Arizona. I opted to ride the bike down since the weather was pretty decent for the ride.

All in all, the ride was fantastic with nothing of note worth mentioning. I rode down on the 20th and it was a haul but well worth it.

I decided to catch a break in the weather and head back from Phoenix to AZ on the 28th. Given the distance I decided to make an early departure around 3:30am. Now, I know it’s a sketchy time to be out on the roads. They were still wet from the previous days storms but I figured the odds were in my favor and headed out.

Well...the odds were int favor but I can’t say the same for one young man.

A few miles after leaving my dads house I happened upon something that I’ll never forget.

Heading to the 101 loop in Phoenix I was northbound on 51st ave when I noticed some hazards, a blinking red traffic signal and an orange glow in the middle of the intersection.

As I got closer I shifted lanes and moved to the right until I realized the orange glow was a car on fire almost in the middle of the intersection and blocking the far left lane of the northbound lane.

I stopped, shut off the bike and ran towards the car on fire. I saw debris throughout the intersection and knew an accident had occurred. I wanted to check the car to make sure no one was inside it. Thankfully it was just the engine compartment on fire and it hadn’t moved to the passenger compartment yet and I could see no one was inside the vehicle.

I stepped back and surveyed the intersection and noticed a heavily damaged white Ford Focus in the southwest corner up against a light pole. I hoofed it over to the focus and noticed two people there and a 3rd person loitering around. One person was on the phone and the other pulling at the drivers door. I asked if anyone had called 911 and the woman on the phone said she was on the phone with them. The other person pulling at the door said the driver was still in the car and needed help.

This car was pretty beat up and took a significant hit to the rear. The side curtain airbag had deployed and I didn’t see signs of the steering wheel air bag being deployed or the windshield cracked.

I pulled back the side curtain airbag to check the status of the driver and I’ll never forget what I saw. The young man laying there limp with his head cocked back. Blood everywhere. A 2”-3” laceration along his left abdomen right below his ribs. Arms in his lap. I watched for about 15 seconds to see if his chest was moving and if he was breathing. After 15 seconds he gasped and his body exhaled.

At this point the other two people wanted to pull him out of the car and I cautioned that it might do more harm to him than good and he wasn’t in immediate danger. It was best to let EMS handle it as we weren’t trained to treat the level of trauma this young man suffered.

What concerned me most was his gasping every 15-20 seconds (agonal respiration’s). I’ve seen it before and I wanted better trained personnel there to treat him.

What seemed like an eternity later the police started showing up follows by EMS.

I have the police a rundown of what I saw (didn’t witness the accident so can’t say much about that). I stuck around for a little bit and out of the way while the first responders did their thing then asked one of the cops if they needed anything else from me. I was told no and I packed up and left the scene.

At my first gas stop on the trip I pulled up the news and found out the kid had died from his injuries. This wasn’t but an hour and a half later.

I don’t question anything I did on scene as after I saw his condition I knew it was dire. I know that even if I was a fully qualified EMT, there wasn’t anything that could be done.

Come to find out. The driver who hit this kid had taken a hit of heroin before getting on the road. He also had prescription drugs in his car that caused drowsiness. Was he on them? Not sure.

So, the reason I wanted to start this thread is to make everyone aware that when you’re stopped. The danger doesn’t go away. Keep your heads up and scanning. You and you alone are responsible for your safety as well as your families safety. A moment of complacency may end up life altering. Not only for you but your family, friends and complete strangers who are there helping after the incident.

Keep your heads up, be aware and stay alive!

https://www.abc15.com/traffic/fatal-crash-closes-intersection-of-51st-avenue-and-union-hills-drive

 

Solid advice. Sorry you had to witness this, but shared to maybe save others.

 

Being in the military we tend to go through a lot of first aid training. Not EMT level stuff but enough to know you don’t try to move someone who doesn’t need moving. Since he wasn’t in immediate danger from a fire or anything else moving him without the proper tools wasn’t a good idea.

I’ve seen this type of respiration before. I used to have a 7’ red tail boa that are dead rats. I used to have to kill the rats before hand and the method would occasionally result in the type of respiration’s I was witnessing with this young man. The way his head looked in relation to his body I surmised some significant trauma to his spinal cord and it was best to wait on EMS.

It was tough not being able to do anything for him. But none of us there were trained for how to treat him and we didn’t have the equipment.

 

Sadly I think that was the case. Given the violence of the accident, the damage to his Focus and trauma to his body I think he was already dead and his body just didn’t know it.


I’m not looking for sympathy. I have a good support structure around me and I’m ok with how I responded.

The intent of the thread is to get people to realize the fragility of life and how quickly it can be gone. We are all responsible for ourselves as well as those around us on the road.

I rode from Phoenix to the East Bay that Saturday and had 745 miles of it to think about it.

It hasn’t been a week already and it’s already changed how I ride and drive.