The posts over the past week about different accidents give me an uneasy feeling. I'm still coming off the emotions of witnessing a really horrible crash last week. My son and I were in the 80 towing a trailer to the dump and stopped at an intersection waiting to turn right. The street we were turning onto is a large, fairly busy street in our town with two lanes going each direction with a center turn lane. I heard the sound of a Motorcycle (Indian to be specific) accelerate on the bigger street coming from our left. He was in the inside lane and was apparently accelerating to beat a light that had turned yellow. A car going the other direction that was waiting in the left turn lane had the same idea and did not even see the rider and made a left turn in front of him. The rider swerved to the middle (into the turn lane) and avoided the car that had turned in front of him but then collided head on at full speed with another car that was stopped in the turn lane also waiting to turn left. It threw the rider into the windshield and over the car and he landed about 50' behind the car.
I quickly pulled into the parking lot of a gas station on the corner next to me and jumped out of the 80 after telling my son to call an ambulance. I was the first to get to the rider who was unconscious with a large wound at the base of his groin that was bleeding badly and already creating a pool on the road. After checking for breathing and pulse a couple others got to him to help. We got pressure on the wound to try to stop the bleeding. The rider regained consciousness briefly and could answer a few questions and could respond to us asking him if he could move his hands and feet which he could. Then he lost consciousness again.
One of the people was on the phone with a dispatcher and the dispatcher instructed us to start CPR. We were giving him CPR for just a few minutes before emergency personnel arrived and took over. He had a collapsed lung and they inserted a tube into the side of his chest to try to reinflate the lung and continued with CPR as Life Flight arrived and began landing.
The paramedics worked quickly but were unable to save him and the rider passed away before they could get him to the helicopter. It was pretty brutal. I've witnessed and helped with a number of accidents over the years. They are all horrible to experience but I don't come away quite as shaken as I did with the first few. This one didn't help that the rider was my same age. It was my 18 year old son's first time witnessing an accident like that and on top of that watching someone die just a few feet from him. I was proud of how he responded and jumped in to try and help before EMS arrived. I was worried about it shaking him up but he has handled it very well and maturely.
Anyway, back to what I have done with the 80 this past week...
I installed these horns that I got on Amazon. Similar to the Hella supertones and had very good reviews that said they were louder than the Hella horns so I took a chance on them. Not as low of a tone as I would have hoped but they're a good horn.
Untitled by
Adam Tolman, on Flickr
Untitled by
Adam Tolman, on Flickr
Then I inherited some pallet racking from a neighbor that was moving. Turned out that I had way more parts for the 80 and minitrucks than I thought. They had all been stashed in a bunch of different places where I could find room. Now they have an organized place and I know what I have. There were three 10' uprights and four sets of 10' rails so it's basically 20' long. I did have to cut one of the uprights down to 8' to clear the garage door when it opens. There is a work bench area under each of the lower shelves and it clears the man door to the outside. Pretty stoked with these.
Untitled by
Adam Tolman, on Flickr
Lastly. the 80 got it's annual spring time wash, and polish. Always feels good to clean up all the gunk from a long winter.
Untitled by
Adam Tolman, on Flickr
