It was a beautiful spring morning. The road trip our clients had been anticipating was finally here.
After some morning chow at a nearby breakfast place, they came home and suited up. Leather gloves, leather padded jackets, tough jeans and riding boots made up their attire, along with the most important thing – helmets.
Over their more than 25 years of marriage, long journeys on the back of their Harley-Davidson motorcycle was their weekend activity of choice. And this day promised to be a good one.
Their journey would take more than four hours each way. Their destination was a quaint, old mining town in the mountains. Over the years it became a ghost town, but recently it transformed into an artist colony and a weekend getaway for people escaping the hustle and bustle of the big city.
Only 15 minutes into their journey they were cruising along in traffic that was moving at about 50 miles per hour. Every light they hit was green. This was going to be a great day.
As they approached yet another green light, a pedestrian suddenly decided he was going to cross the street. He was 50 feet away from the crosswalk – darting between a row of cars that were waiting to make a left turn.
Maybe it was the line of cars, or maybe it was his urgency to jaywalk, but whatever it was, he didn’t see our clients on their motorcycle barreling toward him, and our clients didn’t see him until he was only a few feet away from them – standing directly in their path.
There wasn’t even time to hit the brakes or dump the bike. Both of our clients simply lost a few seconds of time. Each regained consciousness in a very different state than they had been in just a moment before.
The husband was on the ground, next to the bike. Apparently his leg had gotten stuck under part of the bike and he slid along with it. Luckily for him, he had a severely broken ankle, but not much else. His riding equipment had saved him from head injury, lost skin, and broken bones.
The wife was lying face-down in the middle of the intersection. She didn’t fare as well as her husband. The mask on her helmet was up when the accident occurred, so her face dragged across the asphalt as she careened down the street. She also had multiple broken ribs, a broken wrist, and a broken forearm.
The pedestrian was about 50 feet away on the opposite side of the intersection. His leg was severely fractured in several places, but aside from that he was in relatively good shape.
In Part 2 we will look at their recovery, the debt that resulted from the accident, and see how bankruptcy helped them get back on their feet.