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As much as I love good weather, there's one thing I don't like about it. Every time the sun comes out I hear reports of accidents involving motorcycles. Every time one of the traffic guys talks about a motorcycle accident, I go numb and my brain is sent spinning back in time. Even though it's been 12 years since my husband was run down by a hit-and-run driver, our lives have been forever changed by that night. Last Friday, marked the anniversary of that event. It started out as an ordinary Friday night. With a 4-year-old and a newborn, we were homebound and thought we needed a video to mark the weekend. My husband, Bob, was just going to take a quick jaunt down to Blockbuster to grab a movie. As I sat in front of the tv with my boys, I started to think gee Bob's been gone a long time. That's when the phone rang and I knew before I answered the call it was bad news. The call was a nurse in the emergency room at St. Mark's Hospital. She told me Bob had been hit by a car and I needed to come right away. It was as if I was paralyzed. I finally spit out the question. "How badly is he hurt?" She said his leg was badly broken and the on-call orthopedic surgeon had been notified. When I walked into the emergency room, the first thing I saw was the pool of blood at the foot of Bob's bed. I was trying to act calm and pointed at Bob's helmet and said something really stupid. "A lot of good that did you!" That's when the emergency room doctor came unglued. He grabbed the helmet and turned it around. The whole back side was shaved off. "That would've been his head," he said. The helmet saved Bob's life, unfortunately it couldn't protect his right leg from a multiple compound fracture. He's undergone two dozen surgeries, dealt with a number of contraptions to hold the leg together and regrow bone infected by staph. Just last year he was hospitalized with another round of staph in that leg. Despite all of that and the pain he still lives with every day, he's glad to have his leg... battle scars and all. I'm glad that he was wearing a helmet and is here to tell about his long journey. If you are a motorcyclist, please where a helmet. If not for yourself, for your family. In the emergency room, they call motorcyclists "organ donors." Remember that the next time you feel the need to hear the wind rush through your hair on a warm spring day.
