UPDATED !September 2012 –
Der korsische Fluch Teil I
The Corsian curse part I
Whyever this happened ,
what happened – neither shall I try to explain nor to understand.
Get the story anyway.
I spend a couple of
weekened preparing the ´Almighty´1150GS and the 650 Dakar for a
longtime desired trip to the Corsian Island. Despite all travelling,
many of which I enjoyed in France for its great people, an ever
surprising country and riding motorcycles at it´s best – I had
never made it to Corse before . So our plan was to discover the
island by tent, boots and bikes . So far , so good.
For a relaxed start we
delayed deperture on an sunny Sunday, took off in best-bikermood-mode
and it only took us half an hour to come across the first motorcycle
accident at the old raceétrack of the Oberjoch-Pass near Hindelang .
An Austrian biker had lost control over his sportsbike and thus
crashed off along the road. As a doctor I off course stopped to take
care off him.
Fortunately it was more
dammage to the bike than to the driver, so we pulled out his bike,
taped all crashparts and somewhat put him back to the road. So back
on the road we visited our friends Robert and Chritine at their
parents place in Tiefenbach near Oberstdorf. Following a nice
bikerchat and Wolfgangs unbeaten applepie we took of on our way to
France via Austria and Switzerland.
Having crossed the
Riedbergpass we ended up in the second bikercrash for the day . Being
first aider we faced a seriously injured biker with serial fracture
of 4-5 ribs, a probably collapsed lung and to be supposed serious
abdon´minal trauma. Stabilizing the patient together with Austrian
paramedics finally made necessary a chopper transport to the nearest
qualified hospital in Feldkirch, Austria. Only lifting up the patient
on the stretcher to carry him to the helicopter I took notice of his
150 kg bodymass and 2 meters lengt ( 6 ft, 8 inches). When one of
the paramedics slipped while lifting the patient into the chopper, I
caught on the full weight for a second or two.
Not very long, but long
enough to change my life too.
When the chopper took off
I already felt a severe lower backpain , at night got already on
painkillers and tried to push the way to Corse , no matter what .
Just I could not walk anymore than 50 meters without yelling and
screaming. Adding more painkillers was as useless as any other
measure you could take on the road. The only position to stand the
pain was – belive it or not : Riding my bike ! I could neither get
on nor off, gasing up was a major trouble as much as any other step I
had to walk or take, no matter what.
So fighting my way down
south across Susa-Pass near Torino for 2 more days of pain and sorrow
finally convinced even me :
Turn around an no Corse in 2012.
Not enough we got to quit
our desperately needed holiday . Next Lake Garda at Trento we got
flooded ! From the skies above with 15 cm of waters not only rinsing
the freeways, but US ! Our search for a place to spent the night in
ANY hotel dismissed us twice for allegedly being “complete” (
which they never were – just could find that the more expensive,
the less “bikerfriendly” is true ). Finally we made our way home
to Pfronten through a nasty coldfront the next day withme being in
ongoing severe pain.
That story could have
ended here – but got on even worse .
If life strikes you , it
strikes hard.
My pain resulting from a
liumbar spine slip disk kept torturing me like mad, adding a
progressive paraplegia of my left leg. So next decision was about
going for Neurosurgery or not. Eventually my nonoperative personal
approach of treatment started improving my medical condition. What
sounds fast now was actually an almost 4 months daily treatment,
including 2-3 kms of swimming almost daily (which is still on just
for sports reasons now )
How much better you feel,
when your partner gives you a kick right in that time too- just
imagine.
That is what Petra did –
another task in life to cope with .
Good Bye Petra – take
care and “good road “ into your “new life” !
Well , the injured biker
made it back to health and the road – so did I . Maybe one day I
will understand what this was good for – and why those that help
become the ones to suffer .
Yet I would not have done
it any other way .
And there will be another
trip to Corse in 2013 !
Still unbroken !
BABA
Posts
