This is my bike shortly after I purchase it in May, 2004. It's a 2002 Silver Yamaha FZ1.

Some of the pix are wrong and most of the links are busted but here's the tale..........mt:

I went down to the hardware store to get some construction adhesive to fix my barn door that got broken by a storm a few days earlier. Since I didn't think it was any big deal, I didn't put on my riding jacket or gloves and I just slipped on my tennis shoes - no socks. I always wear a helmet so I did have that on - good thing as it saved me from massive brain trauma at worst, disfiguring road rash at best. On the way home I was approaching a bad intersection of a farm driveway on a hill and I wound up getting too close to the edge of the road. I think I was probably distracted by looking at the county water line that was being installed - being too nosy with stuff that wasn't any of my business! Anyway..........I knew I was too close to the edge of the road but I didn't want to yank the handlebars & I figured the worst that would happen is that I'd dump the bike off the edge of the road into the mud. HOWEVER......what did happen was that once the front wheel dropped off the edge of the road, the rear tire jumped out from under me the opposite way & launched me over the handlebars onto the pavement. I remember rolling & tumbling & the sound of the bike on the pavement behind me. When I stopped tumbling (it didn't knock me out) I found that the shield of my helmet was gone & so were my shoes! I found both down the road AHEAD of me about 10-15 feet. I had some trouble walking as my right foot was mangled up pretty good. Surprisingly there wasn't a scratch on my left foot. I had some road rash on my lower back but the backpack I was wearing took the punishment that the pavement would have inflicted on my entire back.

I took off my helmet and pack, put my shoes back on and since I was only a mile or so from home, I dug out the cell phone & called my wife to come get me. I tried to pick up my bike out of the ditch but couldn't. A young fellow stopped while I was waiting for my wife & he helped me right the bike, since it was in the mud though, it just fell over on it's other side. I went home, got in the tub & tried to assess the damage. I knew my foot was hurt and once I got it washed off, it looked like it was broken. There was a big knot on my left shoulder, so I figured my collarbone was broken as well. My neck never really "hurt" but I couldn’t move it - turned out to be a good thing that I couldn't move it. I got to the hospital about 6:30, got to x-rays about midnite or so. The x-rays showed that nothing was broken except for 1 or 2 toes, they told me I'd be going home soon. The doctor came in & started quizzing me about my pain. I told him that I wasn't in pain but I couldn't turn my head either right, left, up or down. He said they must be missing something & he ordered a cat-scan. As soon as I came out of that, they slapped the neck collar on me. I asked them what they'd found & nobody would say anything to me. At that point I knew something was bad wrong. They wheeled me back to the waiting area & the doctor came in & told me that I'd broken my neck.
Specifically, the C2 vertebrae. He said his best guess was that since I had pretty good muscle structure in my shoulders & neck that the trauma from hitting the ground had caused those muscles to seize & had protected my vertebrae from breaking completely. Had it broken completely, I would have been:

(a) permanently paralyzed
or
(b) dead on impact.

That certainly got my attention! He said they were trying to decide whether to fly me to L'ville or send me by ambulance. Soon, I was strapped to a back-board and was pumped full of nubain & valium for the trip. They packed me in the ambulance & away I went to University Hospital . When I got to L'ville, they had to re-do all of the x-rays because they couldn't read the cd that HMH sent with me. Being moved between the hospital bed & the x-ray table was PAINFUL! Later, they did an MRI & said that there was some spinal swelling but that they had expected that & not to worry. I spent Thursday & Friday in the hospital. On Saturday, they fitted me with a fancy neck brace & sent me on my way. I went back to the neurologist after a month & they said everything seemed ok. After that, it was just the wait for stuff to heal. Within a few days, I went to see a local doctor about my foot - it was looking kinda yellow and was oozing a bit. The doctor did a culture on the wound and it came back positive for a staph infection - MRSA. I had to go to the hospital for 13 days to have an IV antibiotic infusion of vancomycin - having to go to the hospital every day for 3 hours or so was a real pain.

I've still got some nagging road rash on my left shoulder that doesn't want to heal and my left "A-C" joint will probably remain partially "separated" as there's not alot they can do with that except surgery & the surgery doesn't have a real good success rate. My foot seems pretty much normal except the big toe toenail has come off & it looks sorta nasty underneath. A foot doctor looked at it & decided to put me on Lamisil so that I don't develop any infection that could cause problems. On 9/30/04 the neurosurgeon at U of L pronounced me "done". They took off the brace, had me do a flexion & extension x-ray and said I was good to go. The first thing I noticed upon removal of the brace was that my balance was off - but that only lasted a few hours. My neck is stiff when trying to turn but otherwise seems trouble free.

As for how the bike faired in this ordeal:

The first estimate to fix EVERYTHING that was trashed, banged up or even just scratched was $3000. I was concerned that the insurance company might total the bike for that amount so I opted to fix the worst of the damage & repair the other cosmetic stuff a little at a time. The revised repair estimate came in at $1600. Minus my $500 deductible, the insurance company issued a check for $1100 - that fixed: tank , cowl and engine cases . The remainder of the parts (headlight pod, mirror, upper cowl bracket, inner panel bracket, inner panel, emblems) were purchased from Arizona MotorSports . I also bought a Zero Gravity "Double Bubble" windscreen from AZMUSA to replace the damaged Lockhart-Phillips windscreen. Since that time, I've found a nice bunch of folks who repair such motorcycle calamities: Empire GP . They quoted an excellent price to repair & repaint the tank, too bad that the insurance company had already settled with me for the damage.

Here's the bike now.

I got the rest of the parts put on & a fresh wash/wax job put on it just in time to watch the 2004 riding season end. There are still some scratched up bits here & there (brake lever, front brake master cylinder cover and exhaust can) that I'll need to take care of during the winter. I'll spend the winter months exercising & making sure that I'm all healed up so that I can put on the riding gear for 2005.

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