RIDE-CT.com

HELMETS SAVED LIVES

OF CONNECTICUT RIDERS

By BUD WILKINSON

     Motorcycle enthusiasts Scott Abeling of Torrington and John Purdy Jr. of Naugatuck shouldn’t be alive today after experiencing horrific crashes last year. They were very fortunate – unlike the 50 other riders who were killed on Connecticut roadways in 2006.

     Like every other rider, they’re aware of the risks and of the exhilaration of operating a motorcycle. Indeed, if you ask any rider about the potential hazards, you’ll hear a tale of a near miss, a car whose operator wasn’t paying attention, or a bike that suddenly became unmanageable.

     Surprisingly, though, this dangerous recreation is actually becoming safer in Connecticut – even as the number of registered riders dramatically grows – because of rider-education programs and improved technology.

      While the 50 riders who were killed in 2006 was an increase from the 38 who died in 2005, the death rate last year of 0.6 per 1,000 registered motorcycles was the third lowest in the past 20 years.

     Abeling, 26, and Purdy, 45, are living examples of the importance of wearing proper gear when out on the road. Both are experienced riders and both were wearing helmets and protective armor when they went down.

     Abeling’s accident was caused by an inattentive teenaged driver who cut across his path. The impact sent him hurtling upwards of 30 feet through the air before he landed on his head. Purdy’s prang was the result of hitting an oil patch at a relatively slow speed. In each case, the accident happened in an instant and was unavoidable.

     The large scar that runs up his forehead is a permanent reminder for Abeling of his misfortune. He was out for an evening ride on his 2006 Suzuki GSXR 750, the type of high-powered sport bike that’s favored by younger riders, when he headed up East Main Street in Torrington.

     “I remember getting out work, getting on my bike, driving up the hill to meet a friend of mine. That’s all I remember until I woke up,” said Abeling.

     Initially taken to Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington, Abeling was quickly airlifted to Hartford Hospital. He was in a coma for several days and in intensive care for three weeks, followed by a stint in a rehab hospital. He underwent several surgeries, the first to relieve pressure on the brain due to swelling.

     Abeling credits his Arai helmet with saving his life. “It’s a good thing that I had it on,” he said. “I don’t think that anybody should really ride without a helmet on but tons of them do. That’s their prerogative. As far as I’m concerned, I know how it is to ride with a helmet on and I’ve seen people ride without helmets on that are not here.”    

      Purdy doesn’t show any visible signs of his accident  – his first in 25 years. It happened on Maple Street in Naugatuck. He was heading home from a friend’s house at 9:30 p.m. and had just upshifted into second gear. While he was only traveling 15-20 miles per hour when his Kawasaki ZZR 1200 hit a patch of oil, the momentary loss of traction caused him to be tossed violently sideways.

     “It happened so fast. All I remember is that the rear tire spun and the bike went sideways. My head just slammed from one side to the other,” said Purdy, recalling that he was knocked unconscious, his collarbone shattered by the bottom rim of his Icon helmet, even before his body and bike hit the pavement.

     However, he’s convinced that without the helmet, the accident would have been fatal. Wearing a helmet is a practice he has maintained for his entire riding career, and it is something has preached for the past 12 years as a motorcycle-riding instructor.

     Besides being an avid rider, Purdy coordinates the Motorcycle Safety Foundation courses at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury and serves as an instructor of the Basic Rider and Experienced Rider courses.

     “I wear a helmet all the time, no matter what the weather,” said Purdy, adding that wearing kneepads and an armored jacket is also a part of his normal riding regimen. “I’m minimizing the risk as much as I can. I know what pavement feels like and I don’t like it.”

     Purdy kept the damaged helmet, its face shield severely scratched and its outer shell heavily gouged, to show every student that he instructs just how important and beneficial it can be to cover up when riding.

     The decline in the motorcycle death rate in Connecticut comes at a time when more and more residents are taking up riding. There were 85,271 registered motorcycles in the state last year, compared to 33,383 in 1996. Yet the death rate is down. The years with the highest death rate – 1.0 per 1,000 registered motorcycles – were 1987 and 1988 when 61 and 57 riders died, respectively.

     While motorcycling is unarguably risky, with accidents often being caused by unobservant drivers of cars, the state sponsored rider safety courses have helped to reduce the carnage. A total of 35,162 new riders have taken the Basic Rider Course in the past 10 years.

     “We have much safer riders,” said Purdy. “They are taking these courses and they are educating themselves. They’re wearing the gear. The times have changed. The gear today is much better. It reduces the risk.”

     Ray Gaulin, motorcycle safety coordinator for the state Department of Transportation, also said that superior technology found on current bikes has contributed to the decline in the fatality rate. “Brakes have improved tremendously over the past 10 years. We also have improvements in tires and suspensions,” he said.

     Gaulin emphasized that, in addition to riding with gear, riders can reduce the risk by not riding when impaired by alcohol or other drugs. “Once a rider starts drinking, the chance of them crashing and dying rises greatly. Our statistics have shown that over 40 percent of our fatalities are alcohol-involved,” he said.

    One person who has seen more than his share of victims of motorcycle accidents, and who has sound advice for all riders, is. Dr. Marvin A. McMillen. A Harwinton resident who owned three motorcycles in his youth, he’s currently director of Surgical Intensive Care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York.      

    “Part of the reason you buy a bike is you like the speed, you like the acceleration. There’s just nothing more fun, if you know what you’re doing, to go through a country road on a motorcycle. The problem is the gravel that’s fallen off the dump truck in front of you. First and foremost, be prudent – know the roads,” he said.

     Secondly, like Abeling and Purdy, McMillen advocates helmet use. “It’s idiotic not to wear a helmet. It doesn’t matter how safe the rider is. There are just people who don’t see you coming,” he said.

     “It can be a beautiful summer’s day. You can be wearing an orange shirt. You can be proceeding at a safe rate of speed and people don’t look. You’re small and they’re big. You share the road with these one- to two-ton chunks of steel. In any fight, you’re going to lose and they’re going to win.”

     For beginning riders, it’s also imperative to take a rider-education course and to select the right bike to learn on.

     “You’re getting more younger riders buying these sport bikes. I feel they’re not respecting the power of these bikes,” said Jim Schiavo of Adams of Oakville, a Suzuki and Honda dealership.

     “There’s more and more younger riders coming in. They want the fast bike just to say they have the fastest bike. It’s more like an ego thing,” said Schiavo, who advises new riders to “know your limits” and buy a first bike that will realistically “fit their needs” – not a bike whose primary purpose is to impress friends.

     Schiavo preaches the need to wear a helmet, too. “You only have one squash,”
 he said.

     What happened to Abeling and Purdy provides indelible reminders for every other rider – and for all drivers – of how quickly something bad can happen. 

     Abeling isn’t deterred, though. He still loves motorcycles and wants to ride, while looking out for his own well-being. “I’ve got to save myself. If something happens and I’m not wearing a helmet, I’m not going to be there to ride another day,” he said.

It Could Happen to You...

The scarred helmets of Motocycle Safety Foundation instructor John Purdy, left and  bottom, and CT rider Scott Abeling, below, vividly show the importance of wearing gear while riding, because you never know when you might "go down." If the pictures don't convince you to protect yourself, perhaps their stories will....

DEATH CLAIMS A RIDER,

CAUSES PAUSE TO REFLECT

By BUD WILKINSON

     No motorcyclist ever leaves on a ride with thoughts of becoming road kill. While riding is unarguably a risk/reward recreation, no one would ever get on a motorcycle if they truly thought death was lurking around the next bend. “It won’t happen to me” or “It can’t happen to me” is always the mindset no matter of how cautious or reckless the rider, regardless of whether the rider wears a t-shirt and baseball cap or is fully protected with armor-lined leather and a full-face helmet.

     But death can visit in an instant. Orange paint sprayed by state police investigators on Route 72 in Harwinton this week outline where an out-of-control bike came to rest, and where 53-year-old Lutheran pastor and experienced rider H. Lane Bridges of Bristol suffered injuries that killed him after he got hurled over the guardrail.

     For most riders, a motorcycle fatality is merely a newspaper headline or an item on a local TV newscast, causing little more than a momentarily pause. That isn’t the case for those who work in law enforcement, staff ambulances or give their time to volunteer fire departments.

     It was late Sunday afternoon when my beeper went off. The combination of a town-specific audio tone and a voice from Litchfield County Dispatch scrambled “Harwinton Fire/Harwinton Westside Fire/Harwinton Ambulance” to the “Signal 23,” an accident involving a motorcycle near the Plymouth town line. As a volunteer member of the Harwinton Fire Police, I jumped in my car and keyed the microphone on the two-way radio: “Harwinton Fire Police (badge number) 101 responding…”

     The accident happened just yards inside the Harwinton town line. State police, closer-by Plymouth police and Plymouth ambulance crews were already there by the time I pulled up. The bike, which appeared at a glance to be a black Honda from the mid-1980s, was resting on its left side next to the guardrail in the northbound lane.

     While I noted activity beyond the guardrail and the many flashing lights, duty required that traffic on the state highway be handled immediately. Harwinton Fire Police members Dale Carter and Bill Capuano halted southbound traffic north of the scene while I stopped northbound traffic on the south end. We quickly established a one-way pattern, but traffic was soon stopped again to allow an ambulance bearing the severely injured Bridges to speed away.

     A short time later state police ordered the road closed until accident investigators could be summoned to survey the scene and try to reconstruct what might have happened. Within minutes of the ambulance’s departure, the other emergency vehicles from the two towns dispersed, leaving four state troopers, an auxiliary state trooper and the fire police on scene. Traffic was detoured around the mile-or-so stretch of Route 72, which was kept closed for more than two hours.

     The road closure left me with little to do except wait with troopers for the accident experts to arrive. The troopers walked the roadway looking for clues, with the auxiliary state policeman from Plymouth, himself a rider as well, and I occasionally injecting thoughts from a motorcyclist’s perspective.

     There were no skid marks on the pavement, which would have suggested panic braking. We surmised that was because riders are taught not to apply the brakes when a bike’s leaned over in a curve. Brakes should only get applied when a bike is totally upright and traveling in a straight line. The accident had occurred at the exit point of an “S” curve.

     State police Master Sgt. Theresa Freeman speculated that perhaps some outside factor contributed to the crash. Maybe a deer ran across the road in front of Bridges, causing him to lose control.

     Thinking about it now, a deer is just one of the potential culprits. Maybe a bee got lodged in his helmet or under his glasses (assuming he was wearing glasses)? Maybe there was a mechanical failure of some sort on his 21-year-old Honda CB450. Could a loss of concentration caused the crash? What about target fixation, which causes the bike to go where you look?

     “Whatever it was, he didn’t have enough time to react,” said Freeman when I reached her by phone at Troop L in Litchfield on Monday.

     Did the rider’s state of mind contribute? What will toxicology tests reveal? It may take 30 to 90 days for a report to be issued on the cause. “We may not be able to determine (the cause),” said Freeman.

     With traffic diverted, the closed patch of Route 72 was very quiet. At some point, word came that the rider had “coded” on the way to the hospital, and one of troopers suggested that he was feeling a bit jinxed having been called to three motorcycle fatals in four weeks.

     Unlike on TV cop shows, though, where the lead character inevitably tosses out a morbidly humorous comment, the atmosphere was completely somber and professional. Could some black marks on a guardrail post be cause by a boot as the ejected rider hurtled toward the ground? Why were there pieces of fern wedged in the engine “kill switch” on the right-hand grip of the Honda?

     The accident investigators eventually showed up and methodically began to analyze the scene. I helped them get the bike upright. Aside from a compressed fork and deflated front tire, the Honda didn’t look that damaged.  

     Another trooper collected evidence, including one of the victim’s riding boots, which had been lying on a bank. A radio call was finally made requesting a “hook” be dispatched to pick up the bike.

     Over the course of two-plus hours, only two motor vehicles skirted the unattended orange cones that blocked Route 72 on the south. Both were motorcyclists – a Harley-Davidson rider who inexplicably thought that maybe kids had blocked the road as a prank and a young rider on a crotch rocket with a girl behind him. He did a quick u-turn and rode away when a state trooper started walking in his direction.

     As late afternoon became evening, my mood lightened slightly. Whereas earlier I couldn’t help but look periodically at the downed Honda and think that death really does ride along every time you go out, I now thought, at least for an instant, what fun it might be to race up Route 72 from Route 6 in Plymouth to Route 4 in Harwinton if it were closed off entirely.

     It was the image of wrecked Honda that lingered in the days after the accident. I didn’t know the owner, but I’d have certainly waved at him had he passed me from the opposite direction, and odds are that he’d have waved back. He was a “member of the club,” whose death serves as a reminder that anything can happen when riding.

     “I don’t know that it ever gets easy, but you do get used to it,” said Freeman when I asked her later what she feels like when called to an accident scene where someone has died, and I’m sure that’s true.

     When I got home the light on my phone was flashing with a message. It was a friend calling. He had heard that a rider had been killed in Harwinton and wanted to make sure that I was safe.

     Pardon me for preaching, but I can’t help believing that the motorcycle-riding minister who died Sunday would approve when I sermonize to all riders to take the necessary time every time you ride to make sure that your bike is mechanically sound; to make sure that you’re in the proper mental state and unimpaired; and to pay attention every second on the road.

     The life you may save will be your own.