Tibia-Fibula Twist-Fracture in Motorcycle Accident

November 1, 2010, 9:35 PM. I exited the building where I work at night, teaching an Adult Basic Education class for Wake Tech. It was a new site, and the weather had kept me from riding my bike for the three months I had been teaching there. Finally, the weather was good, and this night, I walked out to my bike to ride home.
I had wanted to get in my first cold-weather ride of the season in preparation for a long winter of riding. Winter is my favorite season to ride, and I was eager to get started after a long, hot summer stuck inside in the AC at home and work. I was also eager to participate in the Polar Bear Challenge, an informal challenge on Youtube where riders around the world ride and make motorcycle video logs (motovlogs)of their trips. The winners are those who ride the most, go the farthest in a season, and ride in the lowest temperatures.
So here I was, walking out to my bike, parked directly in front of the school building where I taught that night from 6:30 to 9:30. I put on my leather overpants, had on my Underarmour sweaters, and topped it off with my leather jacket and leather vest. It was only about 45 that night, so I wasn't wearing my arctic gear, which is padded, but no matter.
I swung my leg over my bike, a 2005 Harley Davidson Road King Classic, for those of you stumbling onto this page for the first time, and thumbed the start button, the bike roaring to life.
Instead of my full-faced motovlogging-modified helmet, I elected that day to wear my half-helmet and leave the motovlog of the journey to another night, as I was tired from teaching and simply wanted to get home and to bed. Too bad, because I was about to get some great footage for a video log.
I surveyed the scene lying before me: a parking lot with 20-30 cars parked there. I was at the row of spaces that abutted the building, and directly before me lay the travel path for traffic between parking rows. I could turn to my right and circle around to either of two exits to the large and mostly empty lot, or I could turn left and head out the normal way, though there was a small line of traffic forming at the exit I usually used. I thought for a moment about turning right and avoiding that traffic, but I thought better of it, reasoning that it wasn't so bad, and I could use the traffic practice. Thus, I turned left, and this was the most fateful turn of my life.
So far that evening, there was nothing at all out of the ordinary. I proceeded at about 10 miles per hour through the lot, in the travel lane between rows, waiting to get to the end of the row so I could bank to my right towards the lot exit about 200 yards away. I reached the end of the row of parked cars and began my bank to the right, head already pointed in that direction, looking through my turn. I leaned the bike a little, rather than just rely on the handle bars to turn.
-WHAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was down. It was just that fast, and I had no warning beforehand. Not a wobble or a wiggle. Nothing to indicate a crash was imminent or could be avoided. The bike went down on her right side, with me still planted on my saddle, shocked, dumbfounded, angry, and embarrassed.
I remember thinking: "God, I look like such an idiot right now!" as the bike skidded on its side, the dirt kicking up a big dust cloud as the bike went into a lateral spin. The next thing I new, as the bike was spinning around on her right side, I could feel my right foot get lodged somehow in the dirt, with my foot beginning to twist as the bike continued her spin.
It was just then that I began to realize that something was amiss and that I needed to get out of this predicament and get free of the bike I was still dumbly holding onto. I pulled and pulled my leg, trying to get it unstuck, but it wouldn't budge. Mind you, this was all happening in the miliseconds of the actual crash, but for me time had slowed down the way it does in a crisis, making it seem like minutes instead of pieces of seconds.
My foot twisted and twisted and twisted until
-SNAP!!!
I felt it break loose and go all rubbery and I could pull it free. I immediately let go of the handlebars and the bike skidded/spun away from me, depositing me in the dirt like some errant dog poop. My bike came to a rest about ten or so feet from where I lay, and I heard it stall out, the headlamp still shining brightly and in my direction.
I thought, "Maybe my foot isn't broken. It felt like it had broken, but maybe it was just twisted because I don't feel any pain now, just heat." I put a bit of weight on my right heel to get myself sitting upright, but the pain was obvious when I did this, and it was vivid. I very gingerly put my leg back into the position it was in when it was just hot and not screaming with pain. I lay on my left side, holding my right leg up a bit to take the weight off it, and I lifted it off the gound completely to look and see if a break was evident from the view of it.
Oh Hail yeah, it was! the bottom third of my right leg flopped at a right angle to my leg -- a very unnatural and disturbing site. There was no denying it. My leg was seriously broken.
By this time, some students came running to my aid, along with a security guard, and they implored me not to stand up as I had initially wanted. Agreeing with their wisdom, I lay back and started to fish for my cell phone in my left breast pocket.
I called my wife to let her know I was OK, but that I had gotten into a small bike accident and I had broken my right leg. She was unhappy at this news, but immediately left to come and see me at the hospital where I knew I was bound for next. I asked her to call my friend Steven to ride my bike home because, as it turned out, the bike was just fine. I had my students right her and turn her off to preserve the battery.
The ambulance arrived a short while later, having been summoned by at least two students and a teacher, who was now on the scene. The police came too, and everyone was answering all kinds of questions.
I remember asking for the ambulance guys not to cut off my clothing if possible. I really liked my stuff and wanted to preserve it. They agreed to try, and as I was not in any pain yet, there seemed no pressing need. The EMTs asked me if I had hit my head, and I replied that the only injury I had was to my leg. They didn't believe me until they looked at my half-helmet and saw that there wasn't a scratch on it. My head had never touched the ground!
I've got to commend the EMT's for their calm demeanor, sense of humor, and candidness with me. For a motorcycle crash, I knew this was a minimal one in the range of gruesome possibilities, and they did too. It was a short trip to the hospital, but a longish wait for my x-rays, but I didn't mind. I was in little to no pain, and I was making the best of a bad situation by jovially conversing with the EMTs and hospital staff as I waited to be seen.
I had a number of x-rays, and these revealed my injuries: Twist fracture of the lower tibia and fibula, approximately seven centimeters above the ankle joint. This turned out to be a lucky break, no pun intended, because I would be able to get rods inserted into my bones as opposed to plates and screws, apparently a better option.
All tolled, I was in the hospital for two and a half days, returning to work a couple of days after my release. I had had a three-hour surgery to put two titanium rods into my broken bones, pulling them together and stabilizing them internally. This meant that I would require no cast!
The pain was excruciating post-op, and I discovered much to my dismay that morphine had no effect on it. After a long time in too much pain, I was finally given percocet, and that took care of most of it -- most of it.
After arriving home, I had to learn how to live as a gimp. A one-legged person who relies on crutches and a wheelchair. It hasn't been easy, but I had managed because I had no choice.
Life has been rough for me the past six weeks since my accident, and I can admit to being a less than stellar person throughout this ordeal, but I've continued to work, which at least limits the fiscal impact of this, which is already over $30,000, most of which has been covered by my medical insurance -- thank goodness!
So, all in all, I'd have to say that I have been lucky in many ways. I could have been much more seriously hurt, I might not have had any immediate medical care if my crash had happened on a dark country road, and I have had a great deal of love and support to help me through this.
Not sure what any of this means for the reader, except as a warning: RIDE SAFE!
For me, it may mean the end of my 5-year motorcycling "adventure," especially if my wife has anything to say. If I go back to riding, I will never again take the riding surface or ambient temperature for granted, as a crappily-paved lot and cold new tires, combined with my slight lean to turn were probably contributing factors.
For such a low-speed "crash," I have learned a hard, expensive, and painful lesson, and I aim to learn from it!