Rolling right along... at 25 mph

Mom and Dad got her just fine and love it! Their cabin is great... here is Mom by the pink cabin. Check out the view!


and Dad was outfitted with an atv. Looks like Captain America... red white and blue!

and they started framing the day after they arrived!


There was one glitch in the scenario... a hitch in the giddy-up... a wrench in the monkey works or is that a monkey wrench in the works... or a monkey in the wrench works.

Anyway. David wrecked his scooter... and himself.

It was at the end of the day on Monday.. the second day of framing... and David and I were visiting my parents at their cabin. We had a very nice visit and vanilla ice cream and cantelopes and then thought we would zip over to our place about 1/2 mile away to talk to one of the crew members who was staying at the property.

David went first.. of course.. zipping as he said 25 mph down the road, standing up, thoroughly enjoying himself. I came along behind him with Cosmo the Magnificent in the front. We had left Delta at home because she is a bit big for Mom and Dad's cabin.

Anyway... David went past our neighbors... 25 mph... standing and waving and smiling that smile... and then I went past. Probably about the time I turned my head to waive and smile at the neighbors he was up the road in front of me and a pregnant deer decided to commit suicide. She jumped in front of him. He had time to say... "shit" and then blammo.

The State Trooper said the accident scene was over 100 feet long and David was skidding on the pavement for at least 55 of those... you can tell that by the blue streak from his jeans left on the asphalt. You can see it on the right side of the photo here:

By the way... that is only a small section of the skid mark he left. He went head first and ended up half off the road with his head ... helmeted head... over in the ditch and legs still in the road.

What is terrifying.. as if that was not enough... is the patterns left on the road for the Trooper to follow. It tells quite a story.

David hit the deer, and then you can see tire skid marks and weird wobbles in the road and then a chunk taken out of the asphalt and then nothing at all for a little bit. That means airborne activity for both David and the atv. Then impact because his blue jean skid mark started and periodically next to the blue jean skid marks... all the way down the road running parallel to those marks... were chunks out of asphalt where atv was cartwheeling and bouncing next to him while he was sliding down the road like Evel Knievel.


The picture above is where he ended up. You see the blue streak end in a dark grey patch on the side of the road.. well look about 4 feet to the left and you see asphalt chunks. The atv bounced there and then once beyond where David stopped in the background. You can see how close it was. He said it was in slow motion he was on his back skidding and could see the atv in the up in the air coming down at him and then boom it would bounce next to him and go up again. As I mentioned, he stopped in there in gravel.. but the atv bounces and skidded on it's side once more then rolled up again on its 4 wheels. Facing an odd direction and purring like a kitten. That was where I saw it when I came upon the scene. By the way... on the right side you can see a yellow road sign. That is across from our driveway... we were very close to home.

Now lets back up a minute. Remember, I am behind him and because of a small rise in road and because I was waiving at neighbors I did not see this happen. Thank goodness.

But then as I cruised along first I thought... 'what is all that stuff up in the road?' Then I said 'oh.. a deer' and I then I noted it was laying there quivering in the road.. 'oh its hurt... dang I am going to have to kill it.. that sucks. I don't wanna do that but it is suffering' and then 'There is the atv way down the road.. oh.. its empty.. David must be going to help the deer. Good, I won't have to.'.... then 'where is David?' and thats when I saw him laying in the road. This seemed to be a long process but it was a matter of a couple seconds.

I stopped my atv, knew we needed help so I did not even get off. I turned it around and rode quickly back to the neighbor's house who were all still in their front yard. I yelled I needed help as David had gone off the bike and they scrambled. (One of the neighbors is the fire chief) Later they said they heard the crash but thought it was a backfire and then saw me going by. When I came back they immediately knew what had happened. Anyway, after hollering to them I went back, got off my bike, took off my helmet, walked over to David... who was staring straight up into the sky with his mad scientist glasses all cockeyed and blood in one eye and told him... "Well... you got your first deer" and smiled at him.

I gently checked him out, he thought his leg was broken (it was) and we waited for help... keeping him talking as much as possible. Friends, family, etc were there in moments... medical stuff around here is all volunteer including the ambulance crew... we ended up getting him loaded and to the hospital in L'Anse. All the volunteers were there as well as the local Michigan State Trooper. David was very clear during all this... he made sure to let the Trooper know he was going ... 25 mph. I made sure she knew he had his helmet on... we had met this trooper once before... really like her... anyway. We are VERY lucky. He is very sore but he only ended up with a broken ankle. His jeans, boots, heavy thermal shirt kept his skin from being rubbed off so he has some road rash but they are more like rug burns. And of course his helmet... has a big bash in the back of it.

He feels so bad because he is not able to get out there and work and my folks are here to help... but the doc told him basically if one was going to get a fracture this would be the kind to get. He may be able to start light duty in a couple days. Dad told him while he was laying there that that was one heck of a way to get out of working!