I was able to talk with John today. His knee is a little swollen but his ribs
are a different matter. They are what is causing the pain. We talked about the
accident and have come to these factors that contributed to the fall.
1) He did not get a real good nights rest the day before, so he was a little
tired.
2) He did not eat a good breakfast that morning.
3) When he the sun came up He was still wearing his leather jacket and helmet.
(Before anyone says anything about safety gear, we are not saying that the
leather
jacket and helmet alone caused the fall.)
4) He did not have enough fluids in his system.
5) He started to get a headache about 10 min. before the fall. I believe that
could
have be caused by the fumes from the bikes in front of him.
Now combine these five things. His body was weakened by being tired, Not eating
anything further weakened his system. The tempeture started climbing and now he
is starting to dehydrate. On top of that he has the fumes of 35 bikes left in
the air that he is breathing in. John told me that he is sure that he blacked
for just a second. He came to just in time to pick what he thought would be the
safest place to hit. Whether this was from heat exhaustion or carbon Mon-oxide
or both. the result was the same.
I told John that I was going to get this info out, and I am for this reason. No
matter how long or recent we started riding, we can all learn. This accident was
caused not by anything that John did on the road. It has nothing to do with the
upkeep of his bike. It was a series of little things that added up to take their
toll. This is something that each and everyone of us need to stop and look at as
"Something to think about".
By the way. Had it not been fore that Leather Jacket and Helmet. John would have
been a whole lot worse off. They showed him his helmet.
Rev.
Any questions on this e-mail or attachments
may be referred to:
Milton James
SWRI Facilities Operations
(210)522-6567 or milton.james@swri.org