Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Saw a dead guy today

My wife called me to tell me that she was behind a gal that was hit head on while riding her Harley. The gal she witnessed was my coworker and my foreman's wife.

Still hurts to think about.

Riding motorcycles and surviving it makes one a much better car driver. The awareness and paranoia bleeds over and stays with you. For a while, my bike was my car. Full leathers, full-face bucket, the best, cleanest visor, the cleanest mirrors. Then I decided maybe it would be better to commute on the SP up the Peninsula and save the bike for weekends. The 101 and 28O were boring and OMG dangerous. You'd think I had an atomic magnet on my license plate, I could never keep any spacing. So it was only a couple of weeks of that kind of morning and evening terror that I wised up. That was a smart move.
Also got wise about having any fun whatsoever in town. Stick like glue to the speed limit or slowly OVERTAKING other traffic.
But never, never give into the temptation to row the gearbox and rev the motor just for fun. Doesn't end well.
Still, the joy of a great road, a great bike and good conditions is worth it in appropriate circumstances.

The rules were ride fast if conditions permit, but never ride in a hurry.

Another was, never ride faster than you could see ahead.

In a group, two second intervals, staggered. Riding side by side is just insane. Side by side too much of your attention is devoted to holding formation with the other guys, and if anything happens you have no room for evasive action.

I believe that is what coulda happened to Allen West’s Harley group here in Texas not to long ago.

No need for fear of motorcycles. People die every day, of every thing. Doesn't matter what they are driving when it comes to highway deaths. From the biggest to the smallest of vehicles.

I commute to work on a bike every single day the weather allows. I know where most of the danger comes from and I look for it. I even expect it. I don't take my eyes off the road. I'm not scared of riding a bike.

By and large, motorcycle fatalities are tied to alcohol, which is never going to mix well with any vehicle. Add in doing stuff you shouldn't have been doing in the first place. Bikes aren't that much more likely to be in an accident than anything else as long as you are doing your part. Get lazy or complacent, or just stupid, and you won't be riding for long.

I know a few guys who get on the motorcycles are dangerous rant, but mostly their wives told them they couldn't have one. They also have man caves and most likely piss sitting down.

We saw one about that bad near Burns, OR about 5 or 6 years ago. 2 guys on bikes - one, with his girlfriend behind him, stopped at a rest stop west of Burns. He pulled out of the rest stop right in front of his buddy. The buddy's bike went under a pickup with the rider. There were individual gears and other parts scattered way down the road. He hit so hard that it tore the front axle out from under the pickup. The front tire was under the driver's door.

JFC

This is a sad tread.

saw plenty working for the Washington State Patrol. Worst ones were either motorcycles or little kids. Mid 80's working south Seattle when Longacres was still racing, they finished the last race and as traffic was exiting Longacres and coming onto 405 North a guy on a motorcycle doing estimated over 100MPH rearended a little pickup ( Don't remember the Brand) the was doing probably about 30, hit it so hard the the driver of the bike went over the top of the little pickup and then the little pickup ran over him. Motorcycle hit so hard that the riders boots were laying on the road and his pants were ripped off on the handlebars. after the little pickup ran over him pretty well crunched him up. Poor guy driving the pickup never even knew what happened. All he said was he was driving up the ramp and felt a push and next thing he knew there was something falling out of the sky in front of him and his pickup running over something.

Party gruesome to post about seeing a dead person.

I have lost count on the number of calls to report accidents or possible suicides of individuals, over the years.

A little of what I have come across:

It is difficult to report mom's in a van of full of children and stoping in front of a train to be hit at 60 MPH. not much left to look at if you care to ask.

Individuals driving faster that the speed limit not making a slight curve and hitting a tree or post. Vehicles were in a few parts, that is when I learned that vehicle do come apart fairly easy.

Vehicles hitting a solid object and putting the engine in the bed of the pickup or middle of the car. You get the idea of the engine went right through the front seat and some times rear seat.

The motorcycle doing 100+ not making a curve and the driver flying 100 yards +, face first into the dirt. This one passed me and happen about 1/4 mile after he passed me.

Trucks going off the road and down a steep incline. Not good to look at, and you watched it happen in slow motion.

I am not in law enforcement, I have been the first on the scene many times and watch a few happen in slow motion. It is funny how I can slow thing down and they come across as being slow motion.

The one where a driver was not paying attention and hitting a guard rail and the lady passenger, screaming so loud that you could hear her a long way away off, watching as she is trying to get out of the vehicles window butt first, just screaming. He was dead on impact, I am thinking he fell asleep and just drifted in to the guardrail.

Mountain driving in the winter and trucks being blown off the roads and not sure if the drivers made it out alive or not, you just call it in and hope some one can get down to where they landed.

This is not a good forum posting topic.

just my 2 cents.

Wow so you think you hit the jackpot seeing a dead person. wow wonderful for you.

Used to think somewhat along those lines. Somewhat. Thing I saw would have been a fender bender with a car, not the man's last joy ride. Lots of different places and infinite situations out there, and some of your comments reek of pure ignorance, or possibly denial, by and large. YRMV

I had to Google "cock holster".

No, I just don't fear things like some do. I have far more risk in my life than just riding a bike. Ignorance? Not hardly. I've been on a bike since the late 80s. I've worked in a hospital since the mid 90s and seen plenty of motorcycle accident patients. Denial? No, I take risk mitigation seriously. I do dangerous stuff all the time. Far more than just riding a bike. I don't take anything lightly. I know full well the risks I take.
I should probably stop flying too, cause that's bound to be dangerous. Specially landing on dirt and grass strips or my gosh, water. Should probably stay out of the mountains at my age too. Who knows when I'll have a heart attack doing the things I love.
Live your life, or get out of the way of those who do. If you're scared to ride because someone got in an accident, you probably don't want to see how many people died today in vehicles with 4 wheels on the ground.

It's your life. Live it the way that makes you happy. I'll do the things I do until I can't. None of us are getting out alive, whether you stay on the couch or not.

Was interested so looked it up. The most oft cited number was 43% of motorcycle fatalities involved alcohol, so I guess it depends on how you define “by and large.”

I’ve seen some really bad ones, but I think JeffA’s takes the cake. Brutal.

Well, when you factor in all the many different reasons attributed to a fatality, you're going to have a hard time finding any one thing come close to 43%, so yeah, I would define that as by and large.
Don't drink and don't do stupid stuff will cover the vast majority of it.
Or just don't ride.

Understood.
Some more statistics from 2019. This one has the percentage lower, and very close to the same percentage of car fatalities.





Source: https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-alcohol-impaired-driving#Persons%20Killed%20In%20Total%20And%20Alcohol-Impaired%20Crashes%20By%20Person%20Type,%202019

I thought this was a "I met joe biden" thread 🤣

First one I was ever at, was in Spanaway WA, just behind the back gate to Madigan AMC and McChord AFB on Rt 7.

Was coming up the left lane heading south, and past some Pontiac half way out in the right lane, like it was going to turn to the north bound lane..

just pass that I saw some motorcycle parts and then some more and some more... and then a motor cycle laying smashed up in the left lane, and a body laying in the turn lane.... Stopped my car and put on the flashers.... the rider was still breathing but shallow and laborious... his pulse fast and thready... The state police had arrived and then an ambulance...Left my Volvo wagon there with the flashers on in the left lane.. county sheriff's deputies were blocking the road and routing people around it all...another trooper got there and was talking to the lady from the Pontiac...

As I stood over the scene of the rider, the EMTs were doing their thing.. this thing must have been their first call fresh out of school, because they couldn't be screwing it up any worse....couldn't start an IV on the guy, or anything.... I started showing my frustration in my face.. and the Trooper who came over could see it on my face.... then he saw these two guys doing stuff even he knew was not right..... couldn't start an IV so they laid the needle on the pavement, wiped another site, further down the arm distal to the elbow and tried again....TWICE...

The trooper asked me was I an EMT... I told him I was military and was not legally allowed to touch a victim of an accident legally. He then asked me if I could save this guy's life and I said yes...he told me Washington State had Good Samaritan laws, and he was ordering me to get in there and do what I could... then he grabbed both EMTs be the collar and told them to get out of there...

I got the guy set up with an IV real quick, after cutting away clothes like his jacket, and we got his helmet off etc...they had called another ambulance, and when it got there, I had the guy ready on a gurney to be loaded up and transported.....

The trooper has seen I knew what I was doing, so he had walked over to the other sheriff's deputy who had been interviewing the lady.... when I was done, I looked in his direction, and he was madder than a hornet.. grabbed his hat off of her hood and came stomping back to me and the patient...
I asked him if he was okay, and got an angry 'hell NO!".... he paused and thanked me for what I did. and then apologized to me, about his anger..

He had asked the lady what she saw when this happened... she hold told him, she saw him coming down the road, so she pulled out to turn left...
and the guy just came up without stopping and hit her car in the fender and he and the motor cycle flipped over her hood... then told him she thought the guy on the motor cycle was supposed to stop for a car... as they had the right of way...that is why he was so pissed off and stomped off before he hit the bimbo...

Turned out the guy was a professional dirt track racer, so he had NO time to react.. I didn't see it happen, just showed up about 3 seconds after it had happened... I did go visit the guy at the hospital in Tacoma. First time I had someone thank me for saving his life...didn't really know how to feel.. I just knew I had to do it, because that was why I was taking the training I was at the time...

First people I saw dead at an accident was like 5 months or so later... that fall, heavy fog out by Puyallup, on Rt 410... Honda Civic crossed the line on a 4 lane with no median, and the fog was so thick you couldn't see 20 yds....head on with a like a 71 Plymouth full size car....cars stopping with flashers on, all over the road....no one knew what to do.... so the driver in the Plymouth was banged up... both were doing about 50 mph or so...
at least he was out of the car....

I go over to the Honda.. It was leaking fuel from the tank and a small electrical fire starting... I went over and the passenger was not breathing.. the driver was breathing but knocked out... some one ran over to see if I needed help....I touched his carotid artery, and he had a pulse.. quick breathing tho... the dash started zapping electricity... cut his seat belt.... seemed he had a neck injury....

an ambulance had shown up with a back board and were getting it ready by the ambulance.... the hair went up on the back of my neck, with a feeling something was going to get dangerous real quick... before I really knew what was happening I yelled for the other guy to get back real quick, and I instinctly jumped back and flattened.... the car was on a down hill slope on the road.... a spark flew and hit gas... then everything blew....

the flames flew over my body as I was kissing the asphalt, sinjing the hair on the back of my neck and head... I looked up and the interior of that civic was a ball of flames... the passenger was already dead, and the driver never recovered consciousness...saw the guy burn alive less than 10 yds from me... no screaming in pain.. I just remember the smell of burning flesh and hair....

nothing more me or anyone else could do...

I had people die in my arms twice when in college from car accidents.. that is why I picked the medical corps when I went into the Army for all the training I got... came out of the Army as an LPN and Paramedic in the civilian market...

that accident outside of Puyallup was the first time I had to watch someone burn to death, and that close up to it....

didn't scare me tho.. that is when I knew this is what I had signed up for... and why... didn't regret my choice at all...

How did you look?

LOL

Yeah.

Like Sycamore.

LOL

Thanks for sharing, but please stop fugking corpses.