icepick578
Dec 20th, 2007, 10:49 am
For those of you who attended the Jackson CCR you may remember the small and loud group of colorful Harley riders that attended and the photos of our event that year that made their way into the article about CCR later that year in the Robb Report magazine. These guys are long time riding buddies of mine and attended that year as I was Chair elect and they wanted to be there at the 'swearing in'. And of couse who would pass up a chance to ride Yellowstone if it came along.
While it is often said that Harley riders tend not to be serious riders with but a few miles under their saddles, that is not the case for most of that group, and in particular it does not apply to Don Bouchard who took the photos and wrote the article as a contributing editor to Robb Report. Don has been a serious long distance touring rider all his life and he and I have made a lot of rides including two trips to Sturgis, one to Daytona, one to Key West, and one to Monterrey, Mexico. His US ride map would have no white states including Alaska. He rode an LT in New Zealand on a tour that he reported on in Robb and grudgingly (in private) told me he liked it....
After Jackson, Don went down in a slow speed corner in Houston where there had been a wreck and where anti-freeze had been spilled and left on the road by the police. He broke some ankle bones and it slowed him down a bit. One thing it taught him was that he needed to abandon the "NGATT" HD rider mantra and wear a helmet along with his colors and leather which he did on a number of succeeding rides he and I made. But Don rides most often with his club that wants to believe they are outlaws, and peer pressure being what it is, I expect they ragged on him abut the helmet and he began to back slide on the gear issue.
Last Saturday night, Don was riding with several club members near Houston when they crossed a badly maintained railroad crossing. The railroad ties had rotted and left gaps in the road bed and in the dark Don's front wheel dropped into a slot that grabbed his dresser and he exited over the bars. No helmet.
When he was brought into the emergency room the attending Doc said "no chance" after looking at the severity of his injuries. Severe right skull hemisphere fracturing and right brain trauma. Cracked right eye socket. Broken clavicle. Broken rib and punctured lung. Miscellaneous internal trauma. Multiple contusions and bruising. So far Don has made the Doc out to be a liar. He is still unconscious, the lung has been handled. Damaged skull temporarily removed and a drain in his head to keep pressure down is doing its job. Both eyes are responsive to light. Facial swelling is going down. His right side is reacting normally, and his left is reacting but they will not know the extent of any permanent right brain hemisphere damage until he is awake and some recupe time passes. He is still on a respirator and they will pull that when he regains consciousness which could be at any time, they feel.
Sometimes there are silver linings, even to something like this ... while scanning Don for interior injuries, they found a mass totally encapsulating one of his kidneys. Malignant, but it has not yet spread at all. Once he is out of the woods on the major trauma issues, they will remove the kidney and expect that to be successfully handled with the surgery.
We might remember him in our prayers for a while. There is a hospital patient information web site that I'll add here when I get it that will provide updates on his condition. If it includes capability to email him, you might drop him a line and some good vibes. Otherwise his normal email addy is: donbouchard@comcast.net
While it is often said that Harley riders tend not to be serious riders with but a few miles under their saddles, that is not the case for most of that group, and in particular it does not apply to Don Bouchard who took the photos and wrote the article as a contributing editor to Robb Report. Don has been a serious long distance touring rider all his life and he and I have made a lot of rides including two trips to Sturgis, one to Daytona, one to Key West, and one to Monterrey, Mexico. His US ride map would have no white states including Alaska. He rode an LT in New Zealand on a tour that he reported on in Robb and grudgingly (in private) told me he liked it....
After Jackson, Don went down in a slow speed corner in Houston where there had been a wreck and where anti-freeze had been spilled and left on the road by the police. He broke some ankle bones and it slowed him down a bit. One thing it taught him was that he needed to abandon the "NGATT" HD rider mantra and wear a helmet along with his colors and leather which he did on a number of succeeding rides he and I made. But Don rides most often with his club that wants to believe they are outlaws, and peer pressure being what it is, I expect they ragged on him abut the helmet and he began to back slide on the gear issue.
Last Saturday night, Don was riding with several club members near Houston when they crossed a badly maintained railroad crossing. The railroad ties had rotted and left gaps in the road bed and in the dark Don's front wheel dropped into a slot that grabbed his dresser and he exited over the bars. No helmet.
When he was brought into the emergency room the attending Doc said "no chance" after looking at the severity of his injuries. Severe right skull hemisphere fracturing and right brain trauma. Cracked right eye socket. Broken clavicle. Broken rib and punctured lung. Miscellaneous internal trauma. Multiple contusions and bruising. So far Don has made the Doc out to be a liar. He is still unconscious, the lung has been handled. Damaged skull temporarily removed and a drain in his head to keep pressure down is doing its job. Both eyes are responsive to light. Facial swelling is going down. His right side is reacting normally, and his left is reacting but they will not know the extent of any permanent right brain hemisphere damage until he is awake and some recupe time passes. He is still on a respirator and they will pull that when he regains consciousness which could be at any time, they feel.
Sometimes there are silver linings, even to something like this ... while scanning Don for interior injuries, they found a mass totally encapsulating one of his kidneys. Malignant, but it has not yet spread at all. Once he is out of the woods on the major trauma issues, they will remove the kidney and expect that to be successfully handled with the surgery.
We might remember him in our prayers for a while. There is a hospital patient information web site that I'll add here when I get it that will provide updates on his condition. If it includes capability to email him, you might drop him a line and some good vibes. Otherwise his normal email addy is: donbouchard@comcast.net