Ok
I was on my way home from work. I worked in Huntington Beach and lived in Long Beach at the time.
I was headed up Valley View from the beach and I was almost to the 405 (San Diego freeway). The traffic was pretty heavy (as it always is in the afternoons in Southern California), so I split traffic. (If you aren't sure what this is, it's where people ride their motorcycles between the lanes of stopped/slow traffic. It's a common practice in So Cal.)
The facts of the accident I had to get from eyewitness accounts and from the police accident report. I still have no recollection of the actual accident.
I was splitting traffic and someone abruptly changed lanes into me, forcing me to rear end a station wagon that was going about 45 or 50 miles per hour slower than me, causing me to come to a rather sudden and abrupt stop. ( I often refer to this as the part where I "wore" a station wagon.) The next thing I remember, is someone pulling the shattered remains of my helmet off of my head and asking me questions.
"are you ok?"
"I don't know," I replied.
"Do you have insurance?"
"I don't know," I replied.
"What's your name?"
"I don't know," I replied.
"Your shirt says Ameritech on it. Do you work for Ameritech?"
"I don't know," I replied.
Someone said, "you have tattooos."
I looked down at my arms, and saw that, in fact that person was right. There were tattoos on my arms. I had no recollection of ever having tattoos. I freaked out. "Oh my god! I don't have tattoos! What is going on? I don't have tattoos!" This sounds funny now, but at the time it was quite frightening.
An ambulance came and the emergency techs had more fun with me. The questions kept coming. "What day is it? What month is it? What year is it? Who is the president? Where do you live? Are you married?" I had an answer for every one. The same answer I had been giving all afternoon.
"I don't know."
The gave me a cat scan. They said I was just fine, that I had some temporary memory loss due to the jar to my frontal lobe from the impact of the accident, and that I would probably regain most, if not all of my memory.
They called the place where I worked. It really is a good thing I had their name on my shirt. One of my coworkers (Gary Green, I remember his name now, but had no idea who he was then) came out and filled me in on who I was, and gave me my phone# so I could call home.
I called the number he gave me and had another very strange conversation.
Hello?
me- Hi. Are we married?
"Where the hell have you been?"
me- Are we married? Do we have any children?
"Goddammit Brian! This isn't funny! David was born 4 days ago. I was in labor with him for 36 hours!"
I was able to explain about the accident (at least that i had had one and that i had no idea what was going on. The doctors got on the phone and explained about my injuries.
It was the freakiest thing, not knowing who I was . . .
I still don't remember the actual occurrence, but Everything until just before it happened I remember, and some of what happened after, what I have written here.
I had to get a new helmet. My heel was broken. My bike got repaired.
After I got my cast off, I was riding it again, until someone ran a stop sign in front of me on Orange in the Bixby Knolls section of Long Beach about 3 blocsk from where I lived at the time.
I remember that one.
I saw him in front of me when he ran that stop sign, and I KNEW I was going to hit him. I hit the brakes, tried to swerve, started grabbing gears, but I knew it was futile. I t-boned his car and went right over the bars and his car. I did a superman for about 40 feet and then hit the ground and slid accross the pavement. This moron gets ot of the car and says, "I didn't see you. You came out of nowhere" Sonofabitch. He has no idea how lucky he is I couldn't stand up. My legs were unuseable, like spagetti noodles. I supported my weight on my arms and hands "walking with them and dragging my uncooperative legs behind me. I dragged myself to the curb and started to take inventory of my injuries. I wasn't that bad off. I had a deep laceration to the bone accross the back of the second knuckle of the thumb of my left hand. I could move it. I could see the tendons and stuff doing their job through the cut. I felt lucky that it worked anyway. My legs still weren't coopertaing. My right wrist was injured as well. I had quite a few contusions and some other bruises and minor lacerations.
"Are you okay?" the moron asked.
I was honest in my reply, "Fuck no I'm not ok. I can't walk. I can't stand. Does this look ok?" I showed the cut across my the back of my thumb and moved it around for him so he could see the bones and all the tendons and stuff moving around in there. He looked like he was going to throw up. For some reason I found this comforting :D I went to the hospital. I regained the use of my legs. I got stitches. I got both my hands wrapped. I went home and ate a pinwheel. Someone took my picture with my hands wrapped eating the pinwheel. It's in my pictures on here.
My bike didn't survive this accident. I have pictures of most of my injuries and my bike in the boneyard. I'll scan them one of these days maybe.
That is the story of the accident.
