August 1 , 2008 - How it Happened (lengthy read)

Wow! It's been over a year since my last update. When last we parted, the Moose had blown up, and Mark and I were preparing for another trip to the Dragon's Tail with the CBR and the R1, followed by a cross-country tour with bikes in-tow.

Our Dragon Trip was a blast! We picked up Dar Edderstien (my brother, Ed) in South Carolina, along with his "Fairy Bike" the 929 and took him along with us. We scored a room at the lodge, unloaded the rockets, and rode until we couldn't ride anymore. Friday went exceptionally well. Ed was blown away by the legend that is the Dragon. He handled it very well too.... hammering out the twisties like a pro. He and Mark played cat and mouse trip after trip, and always came back giggling like school girls. We strapped a video camera to Ed's bike and proceeded to collect evidence of our two-wheeled buggery. Including a few near-misses with oncoming traffic, and Mark's now-famous, 12 O'Clock wheelie in the face of an oncoming officer. Apparently the rider signal for "police" in South Carolina looks nothing like the signal in Florida.... however, it closely resembles the cue to "bang it up on one".

Saturday was yet another busy day of Dragon Slaying. At one point, we were seperated by traffic, and I had filtered back. About half-way down the mountain, I saw Mark, pulled over on the side of the road on the R1...... waiting..... for me to catch up.... in fine Mark fashion. Okay, I thought to myself, this is how you want to play?? I peeled down the mountain the rest of the way home. Keeping a nice pace, and well in front of Mark. I rolled into the lodge (where Ed was already waiting, suit-off and smoking a cigarette) smiling from ear to ear. Mark rolled in as I was taking off my helmet, and just about ready to boast of my superior riding skills, when I hear, "I fell down and broke-ded my toy". WHAT????? I turn around to see Mark and the new R1 COVERED in dirt. Just below the layer of dirt were the scrapes, scratches and broken plastic. Yep. He duffed it.

He wasn't waiting for me on that corner... he had just picked up his bike and was getting back on. So much for my bragging rights!! And, so much for the brand new R1. No harm, no foul. It was still very rideable, and Mark suffered only a little cut to his hand and a few bruises. Not nearly enough to suck the fun out of our trip :)

Sunday was a wind-down day for me. I told the boys to ride on and be careful. I felt like taking it slow and enjoying the last day of our stay. As they bolted out for the last trip back to the lodge, red-lining every gear until they were out of ear shot, I suited up and hopped on the RR. About a mile in, I found myself at the guard-rail turn.... one of my favorites. I dug in, just a little, to get that adrenaline shot, tipped her in, eased on the throttle.....

and woke up seconds later on the pavement, looking at my beautiful RR laying in the opposite lane.... rubber, no longer down. I scrambled to my feet to get to the bike as it lay on a blind corner, in the wrong lane. I got to it.... couldn't pick the damn thing up!! So, I did what I had to do in order to avoid any further injury to another rider that I was sure would be tearing around that corner at any second. I grabbed the grip and DRAGGED my baby into the right lane. The sound of that plastic ripping across the pavement still haunts me. But, disaster averted, a nice man in a mini van stopped and helped me get back up on two, and the RR and I limped back down the mountain. I arrived just as Ed and Mark were suiting up to come and find me. BAH!!! My knee was shot, and I was pretty bruised up. My faithful rocket took the brunt of the damage. (The pics were taken from my phone... my apologies for the poor quality)

So, there we were.. two brand new bikes... both in need of full fairings and a few other pertinent parts (brake levers, mirrors, clutch levers, etc.). We loaded up Ed and the Fairy Bike (the only one to walk away from the trip without surfing the asphalt) and brought him back to SC.

Monday, we decided to take a "scenic ride" over the mountain. We were sore, beat up, bruised and bewildered, but always in the mood to ride.... a little. We got lost and ended up riding over 150 miles before we got back to the lodge. Needless to say, we were not smiling upon our return.... I believe I was weeping.

We loaded up and rolled out for the first leg of our cross-country trip. I can't even tell you which states we stopped in, but in two days we were in Nebraska. I had never been out there, and Mark was so excited to show me everything there was to see. He was in his glory.

I took this picture of Mark, below, on the way to the campsite.... about 5 hours before the accident.

Wednesday night Mark wanted to "camp". Okay, I was game for that. We had stayed in the posh hotels for the entire trip... let's rough it. We bought food to grill out, and some other not-so-necessary things to make the night interesting. Found a nice little campsite, signed in, put our $5 in the box and set up. We decided to ride into Valentine to make a few phone calls (we had fairing sets and parts waiting for us in South Dakota). On the way out, we saw a couple of deer. I was completely paranoid that one was going to dart out of the trees in front of us. It didn't happen. We hit the long straight Nebraska roads, with the easy 130 sweepers, and thoroughly enjoyed our ride. We got to town and made our calls, checked in with family, and got ready to head back for campfire grillin', smores and a few of those ever-popular tasty adult beverages. I told him as we were suiting up.....

"Do you realize if one of us goes down out here, we are screwed?? Nothing for MILES.. and I mean MILES, no cell phone reception, no traffic.... nothing."

Mark smiled at me and said "No crashing".

As he was putting his helmet on, he said that he would keep it around 80-85 if I was comfortable with that (I was hurtin' after my tangle with the Dragon) and if it was too fast, I should drop back and he would see me and slow down. Okay, say I... in my smart-ass tone. Too fast???

We headed out. As we hit the wide-open straights, I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to prove to my man that I may have been injured, but I was still strong enough to play like we usually do. I dropped a few gears, opened up the RR and rocketed past him at a smooth and controlled 156.... giggling to myself. He LOVED it when I did that :) As I pulled back into the right lane, and started bringing her down, I looked up to see the big, yellow left hand corner arrows just ahead. At that moment, Mark came rifling past me at an easy 120. I thought, what is he......

I didn't even have time to finish the thought. He went into the corner too hot, I saw brake lights, a huge cloud of dirt, and the R1 flipping end over end.... pieces flying off like missiles. I got to the corner, dumped the RR and spotted the R1. 350 feet off the road, smoking and tangled up in barbed wire.... no Mark. As I got my helmet off, my peripheral improved, and I found him. He was laying about 250 feet from where he left the road, on the other side of a fence, flat on his back, no boots. As I got closer, I could see that his face was the most awful shade of stone grey (not blue like they say) that I had ever seen. His helmet strap had tightened up and choked him, and he wasn't breathing.

I unbuckled the strap, but still nothing. I'm sure I did the wrong thing, and I apologized to him before I did it... not knowing what the consequences would be at the time.... but I took his helmet off, leaned on his chest, grabbed his face, and yelled at him...... some seriously scary sounds came out of him.... and then....he was breathing. Oh thank GOD!! He's breathing!!! But I had no idea what to do now - he was still unconscious, I had no cell phone and there was nothing and no one as far as I could see.

At that moment, I spotted a white pick up truck coming down this never-ending, unpopulated, desolate road. I ran to the road like a mad-woman, waving my arms and screaming. They slowed, but weren't stopping... possibly taken aback by my hysteria. I hit the truck with my hand as hard as I could, and screamed "Please!!!". They stopped. The man got out to try and help and his wife called 911. He realized as soon as he got down to Mark that there was nothing he could do. He was kind enough to stay and offered a handkerchief and some water until the ambulance got there. They had two teenage girls in the truck with them. They didn't speak... none of them. They just stood and stared in shock.

I got back to Mark, and his eyes were open. He looked right at me and smiled, and in the calmest, most Mark-esque manner, he said, "Hey Lover, what happened?"

Oh the sigh of relief that I let out. Tears came without warning and I could not control them. I tried to hide them to keep him as calm as possible and I told him "Well, you had a little accident."

"How bad is the bike?" he asks. I laughed and cried all at the same time. How bad is the bike.... now there's my Mark. I gave him a huge kiss and proceeded to lie through my teeth to him...

"The bike's not bad at all.... still rideable"

He was struggling to sit up, so I helped him to sit up a little, and got under him to support him. I told him that it was all good, that help was on the way. "What help?" he asked. "The ambulance is coming" I said, "they will help you and everything is going to be okay."

"Why is an ambulance coming, what happened?"

Oh shit... okay, not a huge deal, this was a very serious accident. Amnesia is common, along with shock, and several other situations that I was preparing myself for as each second SLOWLY ticked by.

We went over the story... the same story, the same words, as many times as he asked. The ambulance took about 20 minutes to arrive. By the time it got there, Mark thought that he had been in a car accident and was trapped in the car. He was screaming at me - "Get me out" and struggling against something that was not there. We were in the middle of 20,000 acres of nothing. Things were going from bad to worse. The paramedics did what they had to do to stabilize him, although, in my opinion, they took their time. They cut his jacket off and were trying to splint his left shoulder when I had to literally point out to them that when he bent his elbow and raised his right arm, his fingers were touching his elbow. In the field they diagnosed him with a crushed shoulder (left), crushed elbow (left), compound fracture of the right forearm, and two broken ankles.

They finally loaded him in the ambulance and we headed for the hospital in Valentine. Mark was talking to the paramedics... telling them his name and information, but he was still asking what had happened. He fought them every time they tried to put the oxygen mask on.... I was almost relieved to see him fight.

Once in the hospital, everything that could go wrong did. They tried twice to fly him out to a bigger facility. Once in a helicopter, and once in a fixed-wing plane. There was a tornado in the area. All patients and staff, as well as 75 refugees from the surrounding towns were in the basement of the hospital. Part of the roof fell in. There was hail, lightning, wind... a storm like I had never seen.

They worked on Mark as they waited for the storm to pass, trying to keep him stable. Everytime Darlene (I will never forget that woman) came out to give me an update (I was adamant that they be 100% honest with me no matter what), it was bad news. Finally, she came out to let me know that they had done everything they could do for him at their "Level F" facility (whatever it was, they had no equipment, no technology, no surgeons, and by the time the storm had passed, no power) and would I like to come in and talk to him.... even though he was unconscious and only being kept alive by two doctors rotating with chest compressions and a bag.

I went in, and there he was..... there it was... that fucking dream that I had just a few weeks before that made absolutely no sense to me at the time. It was Mark, lying on a table, with a white blanket covering less than half of him, and that bright orange thing around his head... I had no idea what it was in my dream, I couldn't make it out, but now I could see it....it was the neck brace. The only bit of color in that hellishly white room aside from the yellow Polo shirt of the doctor that was standing on a chair pounding relentlessly on Mark's chest.

I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, there was a ringing in my ears comparable to nothing I had ever heard before. The nurse that was in the room had backed up under the monitor, and was crying... but trying to hide it. The beeping of the machines was echoing... it was so loud. The doctor stepped off the chair, nodded his head, and the nurse reached up and turned off the monitor before the beeping had the chance to turn into the solid tone of the flatline.

I looked at the doctor, and pleaded with him not to stop. He just shook his head. I said, "So that's it??? That's it??? You just stopped, backed away, and erased a man!!! You can't!!!" I was screaming at him. Someone had come in from the door behind me, and held onto my arms... I don't know if they thought I was going to pass out, or hit the man.... but I was thereby restrained at that moment. The doctor shook his head at me like a disappointed parent, stuck his finger in my face and yelled.... "If that was my loved one on that table I don't think I would want to see this happening to him.... he's not alive anymore, and he hasn't been. We were just keeping his heart going until you could come and say goodbye".

Holy. Shit.

They all left the room and let me have some time to myself, with what was left of Mark. I don't know how long they let me stay in there, but they finally came and dragged me out... to the phone.... to call people. Are you kidding me???

I called my little brother. I don't remember the conversation, but he told me about it later. He translated the words through the hyperventilating, screaming and tears, that Mark had not made it. The nurse at the hospital allowed me to stay in a room there overnight since the bikes had both been carted away on a wrecker, and the Suburban and trailer were at a park somewhere in the boonies that I couldn't find my way back to if I had to.

They drugged me heavily, and I slept. Only to wake up the next morning and realize all over again what had just happened... coupled with the fact that I was 1900 miles away from home with a rig, two bikes, police everywhere, coroners, funeral directors, airline arrangements, questions, questions, questions, personal belongings...... ALONE.

My brother and father flew out either that night or the next morning to help me handle everything and get back to Jacksonville. Darlene drove me back out to the scene the next morning while I was waiting to drive up to Omaha to meet Eric and Dad. My camera was under Mark's seat and I was not leaving without finding the card. After a few hours of looking, Darlene and I had managed to find at least 30 pieces of the camera and finally the card - with that last picture of Mark that I took on the side of the road.

The police figured out which campsite we had parked the truck and trailer in and were kind enough to drive all the way out there, hook up and bring the rig back to me at the hospital. From there I drove up to get Dad and Eric. It took us a couple of days to get everything finished up there. I had to meet with the local funeral director and give her some clothes for Mark to wear on his flight home - which he actually missed.... only Mark. I had to get the bikes out of the local impound after the police were done with them. I had to meet with the investigators several times. They ended up keeping the gauge cluster from the R1, but released everything else to me to take home.

Which we did.. eventually. The truck broke down in TN, so we had to fly the rest of the way. I remember sleeping in the airport, and I know that Eric volunteered to take a seperate flight when there weren't enough seats on the first one. I honestly don't remember a lot of the trip back - there's a reason, but we won't go there right now. That's the abridged version of the disasterous trip home.

Mark never hesitated to tell me just how happy he was, and how wonderful life was. He appreciated the small things. He told me every day how much I meant to him, and how happy he was to have me in his life. It was certainly no secret to him how much I loved him too. I never have to wonder.... I know that he was happier than he had ever been and he was 100% at peace with his life.

Until next time......

Rubb'er Down :)

Kristen