180mph

VMAX  Forum

Help Support VMAX Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
One of the best examples of "God protects fools and idiots," I saw while on fire-rescue involved a guy on a Suzuki Intruder who ran from the cops. He had a passenger, she was a young, slim gal dressed in shorts and a short-shirt. He picked her up at a local bar at closing time. At the time, Florida required helmets. He didn't have one for her. They took off headed somewhere, it was shortly before dawn.

A city cop saw them, and was going to tell the rider to get off the road ASAP, he said he wasn't going to write it as a ticket, just a warning to get off the road. However, when he hit the lights, the rider cranked it on and the cop followed.

They came to the railroad tracks which divide so-many southern communities. The rider was apparently confused as-to where he was because he was trying to cross the tracks on one of the roads which made the RR crossing every few blocks. The road he was on, didn't cross the RR tracks! The road ended, now he was on the RR right-of-way, at a high rate of speed, with his few-clothes passenger hanging-on.

The municipal LEO stopped the pursuit, because this location was about a block from the police station, he knew exactly where he was: the end of the road!

As he watched the speeding motorcycle, he saw it hit the RR tracks and saw the rider and his passenger launch like a trebuchet flinging them downrange. He claimed he never-saw the rider hit the brakes, and illuminate the motorcycle brake light.

He called back to dispatch for a fire rescue advanced life support ambulance, and an engine company (firetruck). As our fire station was next-to the PD a block-away, we got there quickly, dawn was just breaking.

I was on the ambulance, and when the LEO explained what had happened, I looked-over to see the motorcycle lying-against the RR tracks. The front end was pretzeled, and the front of the engine cases was smashed-open against the RR rail. You could see the bottom-end.

Amazingly, the pilot of the bike and his passenger were almost-untouched! I expected to find them with multiple broken bones, and possible concussions given the description of the LEO about the 'launching,' but they had no apparent fractures, no open ones, anyway, and little in the way of soft tissue trauma. Some minor abrasions, not-even lacerations. I was very-surprised.

We had dispatch call the Florida East Coast Railway to inform them about the damaged track, and they soon got out there to cut-out the bent piece of rail. Yes, the Suzuki had hit hard-enough to bend the track, visible to the naked-eye.

That same stretch of track had been the scene of fatalities and serious car/truck vs locomotive collisions, but I never-saw one like that, before or since.
 
Back
Top