Heads, Harleys, and Helmets

Dear Louie,

I have never been an advocate of motorcycles, but I can see the attraction of riding in the breeze on a warm summer afternoon. Arms of a warm body holding on to one’s back as the wind rifles through the hair and the bugs fly into one's mouth or nose seem pleasant and also uncomfortable.  In other words, I am ambivalent about the pleasures of motorcycling.  

This ambivalence comes from emergency room experiences, from smelling the blood and grime, from clearing the airway of a brain-dead rider as we awaited the next of kin to sign the organ donation form, from picking stone and gravel from limp deformed limbs, broken tibias, and femurs, scratched hands and ground up faces. Motorcycle accidents were always a Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning, or Saturday night timed event.  

There was little pleasure in tending the victims, and because so often the victim was young, employed, and carefree, the family members had ambivalence about the riding activity.  So often, the young wives or middle-aged parents would respond to the ER call and, when seen in the ER room, would be worried and angry.  Worried about the extent of the injury but angry about the lack of sense and responsibility of the motorcycle rider who had left his wife and kids at home while he “tooled” around on his HOG.  Much the time when the relative was a young mother with two or more kids under the age of four or five, pregnant, and holding an infant on her hip would appear in the ER room.  Tears were shed, noses were wiped, and prayers were said.  But the dead were dead, and those alive were in for months of repair and rehab.

In the 1960’s Wisconsin passed a Helmet Law making it mandatory to wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle.  Sometime in the 1970s, after dramatic appearances before the state capital and in the rotunda of the capital, the vocal groups of law-defying riders convinced the lawmakers to overturn the state law and allow self-rights and privilege to rule. The law was overturned, and the donor supply for tissue transplants increased annually.

Two or three accidents set my mind to support the Helmet Law.  Both occurred during a three-week period in July 1982.  The first event occurred at 3 am one warm, quiet July morning.  I was summoned to the ER, where I was presented with an unconscious young man who had been found by the side of the road.  He had been wearing a helmet and had struck a telephone post with the right side of the helmet, pealing a layer or so of paint and plastic from the helmet.  A dent was over the side f the helmet, the visor was cracked, and the unconscious boy-man was brought to the hospital.  The exam showed a contuse right side of his neck, a fractured right clavicle, a pneumothorax, and a right orbit fracture.  The fractures were cared for, the pneumothorax was reduced by closed drainage, and the concussion was observed.  He gradually regained consciousness, and his neurological condition soon returned to normal.  After five days, he was stable and was discharged home. His father picked up the bike, a Harley, took it to a dealer and placed it in safe keeping until the patient examined it and the helmet, crossed himself with the sign of the cross, and sold the bike.  He recovered completely and never rode again.  The eight-inch telephone pole was replaced, and all parties were happy.

Two weeks later, a young man I’ll call “Danny” was brought to the ER.  Danny was a large young man, six foot tall, weighing 295 pounds.  At the age of twenty, he was the father of two children and had been into drugs and booze for two years.  He rode a three-wheeler motorcycle, had long flowing hair, a sleeveless shirt and tattoos on the upper arms, a skull and cross bones on the right, and “Death before Dishonor” on the left shoulder. 

He had been riding his bike on a well-traveled highway when an auto pulled out of a crossroad directly into his path. This resulted in his bike striking the front motor panel on the left of the auto, plummeting Daniel over the hood, and striking his head on the concrete of the highway.  His unprotected head was smashed in a Humpty Dumpty fashion, and all the Kings Men couldn’t put him together again.  He was dead on admission. 

An exam showed no other injuries but the smashed skull. He didn’t have a scratch on his body, all extremities were in tack, and his neck was not broken.

But his skull was smashed.

He was dead, and his friends - all high on dope- were unbelieving and incensed that nothing could be or was being done.

His wife, with her two young children, cried and brought his helmet to the hospital; he had refused to wear it when he left for the tavern at six p.m. Her life was never the same; the children grew up without a father;  she, without her Daniel. And while she knew that wasn’t too much of a disadvantage, he was kind and loving when sober and working. 

That Saturday night, he wasn’t working, wasn’t sober, and didn’t wear a helmet. He died, and he left the hospital the same night.

My other patient was more seriously injured, left the hospital after five days, and recovered after 4 months. 

Daniel was buried on Tuesday.

There is a relationship between Harley’s Helmets and Heads.  This year, the 100th anniversary of Harley may emphasize that relationship.

And so it goes, Louie.

Keep the faith and protect your noggin,

Jim