Rolling Thunder 2011 ended with a bang or maybe it was a crunch...
My Dad and I left his house at 5:30 PM on Tuesday evening to ride to a friends house in Louisville, KY. There was a little traffic going around Indy but not too bad. We stopped at a truck stop just south of Indy for fuel because we both needed gas and down the road we went.
At mile marker 63.5 in front of Republic Printing, there was a car in the outside lane. We were in the inside lane traveling at 75 mph. The driver suddenly slammed on his brakes, and as the car whizzed by, we observed the cause for the abrupt halt in his forward progress - a deer in the outside lane directly in front of him.
At this point, both my Dad and I slammed on our brakes and hoped for the best. The best being the deer turned back from the direction whence it came, and we would be fine. Well, that didn't happen.
The deer reared back on its haunches and lunged head-long into our lane. It was either going to be me or my Dad, and unfortunately, it just happened to be him. I narrowly missed the deer by meer inches.
My Dad hit the deer head-on while I watched the whole incident unfold. He went down, slid, tucked and rolled, but managed to stand straight up after the accident. All I could think about was getting off my bike and getting to my Dad.
I exercised the ABS system on my bike and stopped as quickly as possible. I dropped the kickstand and was running back to my Dad when I saw him stand up. I thought, "Okay. He's up and moving." I ran up to him and asked if he was okay. The first words out of his mouth were, "Find my boot. I always lose it." He was obviously in a state of shock. I told him to sit down and immediately grabbed my phone and dialed 911.
The operator answered and I told her my name. I said, "There has been a motorcycle accident involving a deer on I-65 south at mile marker," and at that exact moment, I looked directly at the mile marker sign. I didn't have to search for it. I didn't have to scan for it. It was like I knew exactly where it was. I continued, "63.5. Send an ambulance."
Meanwhile, I turned towards my Dad and noticed that two truckers had both stopped right in the middle of the interstate and blocked traffic. One of them, a fellow biker, had exited his truck and was attending to my Dad. Thank you, whoever you are.
I asked my Dad if he was alright, to which he replied, "Yes, I'm fine." However, the truck driver was shaking his head in the negative and silently lipped, "Look at his knee." I could then see that my Dad's jeans were in tatters and soaked with blood. I pulled back the jeans to reveal that his knee looked like minced-meat. I could actually see the knee-cap!
Luckily, the closest fire station was about a mile back up the road. The calvary was there in less than five minutes. They loaded up my Dad and rushed him to the local emergency room. I followed behind on my BMW.
Fast forward a few years and a long story in between, my Dad is fine. The only noticeable memory of the accident is the scar on his knee and a road-rash scar on his arm. The bike he was riding was totalled and hopefully is long gone to where ever motorcycles go to die.