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                                               Brother Larry Ritchey                      " Free Spirit " Artist: Jillane Curreen

 When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support,  to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend and they are.  They are there for the reason you need them to be.  Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.  Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.  Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.  What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done.  The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.  

There are many different responses to crisis. Most survivors have intense feelings after a traumatic event but recover from the trauma; others have more difficulty recovering — especially those who have had previous traumatic experiences, who are faced with ongoing stress, or who lack support from friends and family — and will need additional help.

What you share in this forum, may prevent that next Accident, that next Casualty

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Best of Luck on an Endeavor Which we Hope Will Help Injuried Bikers.

Dear Gary:

I wish you all the success in the world with your new endeavor to provide useful information to bikers who have been injured in motorcycle accidents. I hope that as your site grows that you will be able to provide more and more information and the most current information on the availability of modalities for the treatment of accident injuries, e.g., up to date information on the various types of prostheses for bikers with limb amputations or modalities for assisting those with spinal cord injuries to live full and productive lives.

I recently saw a news article on an arm prosthesis that for the first time can be manipulated directly by "intentions" similar to the way we intend to move our arm and our arm then moves as we intend. This was heralded as an important new advance in medical technology for upper limb amputation patients. I think that this may be the most important contribution that you could make for seriously injured bikers, along with this forum for the bikers who are going through this process of learning to deal with their injuries for the first time to "meet" and discuss the wisdoms of other bikers who have already successfully gone through "learning curve."

I would hope also that communicating with other bikers with the same or similar serious injuries might also provide some comfort, perhaps as they struggle at first to accommodate to their limitations in terms of the things that they enjoyed doing prior to their accidents that perhaps they are less able to do now.

I wish I could be the first one to open my heart in this way, but my motorcycle accidents have not resulted in sufficiently serious injury for me to feel that my accidents or injuries would be very relevant to the seriously injured. But I've come to know many hundreds of seriously injured bikers over the years and speak with them and the newly injured on a daily basis. I will relate the story of one, Fred B., who had a lower leg amputation. He was a tough, proud, heavily tattooed and prison graduated biker from New York. He had been splitting lanes, between two left turn lanes, as we are permitted to do in California, and when the light turned green pulled out to make his left turn ahead of the cars in the lanes on either side. A van ran the red light and when Fred landed he could see his severed leg beside him. A man stopped to help him, took off his own shirt and tied tourniquet around his upper leg to stop the bleeding, and probably saved Fred's life. His sister asked me to meet him in the hospital, which I did, and even with his lower leg gone and in excruciating pain all he could think of was finding the man to say thank you for helping him.
Fred got used to getting around jumping on one foot and with the use of a crutch for the longest time and resisted his physicians recommendations that he get a prosthesis. Eventually his sister and I were able to convince him, and of course, now the prosthesis is the first thing he puts on in the morning and the last thing he takes off at night. He bought a mansion in the San Fernando Valley and spent the next few years remodeling it himself. He did all the marble floor tile work himself and a huge marble wall surrounding his fireplace. He put in the bleached floring and with the help of a couple of other workers he built a swimming pool and even a basketball court for guests. He was always good with his hands before his accident, but mostly involving work with motorcycles and cars. He built his own motorcycles from used parts up in his little room several stories up in his Queens "walk up," and when he was finished would get some friends to help wheel it down the staircase to the street. He was notorious on his New York street, riding the bike standing up on the seat.

Fred's "day job" in New York and in California was as a "frame man," stretching the frames of cars which had been in accidents. He was good at it, enjoyed it, but gave it up after the accident even though he felt that he could still do it.

We've talked about him getting back on his bike sometimes, and at one time he figured a way to micky mouse the controls so that he could move the clutch up to a hand control, and he has worked on my bike on occasion, but he likes his car now, I can't recall the make, some exotic foreign car.

But now he has this other interest in buying and remodeling homes, not so much for the money, but for the enjoyment of doing the work. I think it may be important for those injured in motorcycle accidents to find what they enjoy most to do in their lives which may be very different from what they had enjoyed previously.

I hope that Fred's story may be an inspiration to those who have been similarly injured.

Ride safe, my friends,

Ray Henke
Motorcyclists-Against-Dumb-Drivers
Co-moderator, Bruce & Ray's Biker Forum

Re: Best of Luck on an Endeavor Which we Hope Will Help Injuried Bikers.

Thank you Ray, for all your support and targeted suggestions, most helpful.

I found Freds story, you told, most inspirational.


Garry