Disabled IT Analyst/Communication Systems Engineer & Automation Test, Control and Design Systems Engineer, 82nd Airborne Artillery ( 1977 ), National Admin for the United States Minutemen - American Patriots Coalition, Service Officer for the Newton American Legion, East Fultonham, Ohio and LEAD on the Nextdoor.com ( Brevard County Malabar Region, Palm Bay, Florida ) Community Social Media site.

I was smashed by a Ford F150 4x4 ( 45 mph ) in 1985 while coming home from work on my motorcycle (25 mph ). He had been drinking, was late for a softball game and forgot about a ' Y ' in the gravel road and hit me from the left side as he slid though the intersection.

I was real lucky ( If you want to call it that )... Somehow God gave me the intuition ( from years of experience / training ) to jerk my left leg up just in time so the bumper of the truck never took it off.

Instead, the truck hit the bike bending it and knocking the aluminum fins off the motor and the bumper and fender on the drivers side was drove back into the tire of the truck and my body went into the center part of the grill and thus drove the radiator into the motor of the truck and then bounced me up the right side of the ' Y '... and I crawled up the bank and near a utility pole and watched the driver back off my motorcycle and get out of his truck... as he got out I yelled ' Call the emergency Squad, I think you killed me !! ' and it sure felt like it at the time.

I wasn't wearing a helmet so that helped me a little in this situation... I heard him before I ever seen him come over the hill and into the intersection, giving me just a few more milliseconds for my body to respond.

I had just passed my little sister on her horse and her son on his bicycle on the hill up to the intersection and if he had not of hit me, I am sure he would have hit both of them as he slid around the corner and heading down the hill. God saved us all that evening. Everything on my left side was smashed including 4 broke ribs front and back like a plate and it took months for the nasty looking bruises to finally go away. My left hip took a lot of damage separating the nerves and muscles like a piece of hamburger but was not broken. They had to drain the left hip socket for a couple of years afterwards as all the fluids seemed to accumulate there... it would expand like I had a big wallet under the skin.
Yeah, serious damage that would never completely heal inside... even my left kidney would cause issues after that. I went to work about a week later and was real lucky to have had an engineering job at the time and could get maintenance personnel to help move equipment as needed.