Donnerstag, 13. September 2012

UPDATED !September 2012 – Der korsische Fluch Teil I The Corsian curse part I

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