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A hard lesson learned...

4K views 11 replies 7 participants last post by  Spacep0d 
#1 ·
Welp, my second crash happened. I was almost a statistic, instead I’m just broken.

The damage is as follows...

Body: Double open fracture in wrist, contusion in lung, fractured ribs and collarbone, giant hematoma in thigh, 3 staples to hold my arm guts in, an ankle so swollen, red, black and blue that I still don’t believe it’s not broken, many misc. scrapes, cuts, bruises.

Bike: Totaled, check in hand for total loss coverage. Uh, yay…

Life: I have no FMLA protection from my job because I hadn’t been there a year yet. I’ll be fired and without insurance soon. Medical costs remain to be accounted for, we’ll see on that. I’ll apparently have permanent range of movement loss in my wrist, but oh well.

I was riding home from work. Same route, same traffic, same as the other couple hundred times. An underinsured driver (woohoo…) of many, many years waiting to make a left somehow floored their pedal (enough to jerk their car and skid, almost as if a perfect prop for me to slam into) and appeared in front of me, blocking my entire lane and some of the other. I had no time to do anything but t-bone it at 45MPH into a cozy deadstop. I don’t even remember the impact, only waking up on pavement surrounded by helpful people waiting on an ambulance in agony.

I’m so quick to take pleasure in pointing out… this wasn’t my fault… I didn’t almost die because of ME… but I did. I only had my helmet and gloves on, too lazy and too confident over the months to change out of my work/riding clothes twice a day. I trusted the competency of other drivers with my life. I am so, so lucky to be alive. I think this type of crash would have killed me 9 times outta 10 with the tshirt and shorts I was wearing.

It’s a hard lesson… a mistake I’ll never make again, and I will ride again with renewed respect someday, ATGATT.
 
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#2 · (Edited)
That sucks bro, sorry to hear this happen. Some riders, such as myself and you are blessed to be alive after an accident. Me personally, I am extremely lucky to only have an injury to my left knee that requires two surgeries. A driver ran a red light and hit me. Anyway, I hope all goes well with your medical expenses and job. Heal fast!!

I am curious to know how much you got for your bike. I had a 2013 with 10k miles on it and received a check for $3800. Plus an additional $400 for my helmet.
 
#3 ·
Thanks bud

They gave me something like $6400. Progressive total loss takes the current year value of your bike brand new MSRP in what they pay you, pretty good deal. I'm not sure if I'll get another 300 or bump up to a 636, 650 or Z800. Decisions...
 
#4 ·
Sorry to hear that. I'm glad you'll recover and ride again. No doubt you'll be a lot more careful from now on. They really "want" to kill you and we often forget this (even those riding for 40 years).

It sucks to live in a country with so few protections, but I'll avoid more comments or someone will just call me a socialist.
 
#5 ·
WOW that's so tough noiradle! Sorry to hear of your bad luck. In an unavoidable t-bone crash against a much larger/heavier vehicle I doubt even the absolute best protective riding gear currently available could have made much difference since the sudden-stop impact is many times more intense (bone shattering) than just laying your bike down at speed where protective riding gear will usually save the day. And with all your injuries that sounds like what may have happened. Of course if you instead were thrown over the vehicle tumbling chaotically in shorts and a t-shirt then full riding gear would have definitely minimized your injuries.

Something to consider is filing a civil suit against the effing jerk to recover your medical expenses and lost wages, pain and suffering, etc. If you can't afford to hire one outright just look in the Yellow pages for one of the gazillion 'ambulance chasing' lowlife lawyers out there. He'll want a percentage of your court award if you win though, but it could help quite a bit.

Good luck & hope you recover 100%! :wink2:
 
#6 ·
Yeah I imagine I wouldn't have walked out of that even fully geared but it would have helped. The armor in my jacket may have saved my wrist, but at the very least I wouldn't have these huge scrapes.

As for lawyer... tricky situation. My ever helpful mom got me one and he was nice enough to come have me sign who knows what while drugged up in hospital. I later called him to find he has basically no desire to do anything but help me get the $15,000 bodily harm from the other drivers insurance. He's basically taking a 25% chunk to get me something I'm already entitled to. I regret signing that stuff so much. I called another lawyer and will see what my options are shortly, I feel I need someone who will take this further because that $15k is nothing. It won't even be half of my medical expenses even with insurance.

Obviously I don't know too much about this legal stuff...
 
#9 ·
Update. It's been a long road to recovery. Permanent range of movement issues in the wrist, plates and screws in there, but very functional. Permanent damage in the shoulder from a grade 2 AC tear, but it's becoming respectable with daily exercise and I can now deadlift 100+ pounds. I ended up losing my job. The lady that caused my accident passed away a week later (she was very old, unrelated to the crash), so my lawyer really had nothing to go over. On top of that, the $15,000 insurance payout I had coming ended up at $5,000 between a hospital lien they put out on me plus lawyer fees, for all the good the prick did, he's taking $5,000 too. On top of that, I had around $8,000 in bills from deductibles, not that I'm gonna pay them (GG my credit).

Basically, I got screwed, but on the bright side I'm almost ready to start job hunting again and I'm hunting for a bike to buy. I wish I could say this didn't ruin me but it did, especially with my mom getting cancer, having to stop work and being denied disability I was put in a situation where I had to take care of her along with quickly diminishing savings from rent and other bills.

Anyway thought I'd give an update, sorry for how gloomy it is but reality sucks sometimes. At least I'm alive! Ride safe all.
 
#10 ·
Sorry to hear all that. I just chatted about your situation with my wife who is an expert on bankruptcies, and your conditions may be in order to claim bankruptcy and get those bills wiped away. While bankruptcies are much more stringent these days with some of the more recent laws on the books, If you've got a ton of medical bills and no job, that's pretty much all you need, along with maybe 1000-1500 for a lawyer fee including filing fee. Yes your credit is fucked for a few years, but considering it could take that long or more to dig yourself out of the hole anyway, it's something you could consider.

Reading your posts, I'm not really sure of the extent of your medical costs, but If your debts greatly outweigh your assets, even by as little as $10K then bankruptcy chapter 7 could be the answer.

Got any questions about it, PM me.

The lady that caused my accident passed away a week later (she was very old, unrelated to the crash)
Yeah, old people need to be kept off the road. I did my part. My mom, who passed away just before Christmas, had become dangerous on the road. She did NOT want to give up her freedom of driving, so I had to talk her into it with some harsh verbiage. And this was all after my mom had to do her job to get my grandmother off the road about 15 years ago.
 
#11 · (Edited)
Sorry to hear about your crash and the subsequent result of it all. For those reading who may find themselves in such a situation in the future, a contract is null and void if not signed while mentally incoherent. That lawyer can actually get into a lot of trouble forcing a signature while you're doped up on drugs. Also your mother can't sign for you unless she herself is specifically enabled by a special power of attorney to do such for you. You could easily have canceled the contract with the lawyer when you were cognizant enough to realize what was going on as they aren't supposed to get signatures when you're on any medications or not mentally sound. Also, they're job is to go BEYOND insurance as the insurance's coverage is limited. Anything beyond that coverage becomes the responsibility of the driver at fault. You can sue her estate even after she's dead. Death doesn't absolve someone of all financial responsibility. The icing on the cake is that she can't file chapter 7 and completely screw you. That's usually what happens with civil lawsuits of this order is the person loses, accrues a huge amount of instant debt that they can't pay, and just files bankruptcy screwing you and your lawyer over. This is probably why the lawyer didn't want to go further than just the insurance company. The moment she died though, her estate became fair game and all of her assets can be liquidated to cover her debt unless her next of kin, executor of her estate decides to shoulder the debt themselves. The only limitation on this is if she had practically nothing left anyways in her name then you're going to get only what her estate has in assets. Financial liabilities are a pain in the ass no matter the status of the party involved. Death can be a mixed bag at times and lawyers will always be the scum of the Earth.

Hope the rest of your injuries heal up better.
 
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