There Really ARE Angels

 



Having packed a few extra items, Jim was ready for almost anything

Jim was a relative novice to motorcycling, not having ridden since his wayward youth as a ship's carpenter in Florida. After buying his R100RT BMW, he completed the Motorcycle Safety Foundation riders' course, got his license, and rode daily "to get into shape." He had covered


Years as a rigger were not wasted

the 600+ miles from Virginia to Michigan in one long day. Three thousand miles later, he certainly had as much seat time as the average "ride to the cafe" city biker. But, there's always the dragon to bite you, and the dragon has a tail.

On a tightly climbing forest road heading around the east side of Mt. St. Helens, Jim swung a bit wide and slid off the edge of the pavement. As I backtracked to find him, I came across the once pristine R100 on its side, wedged into the soft earth and Jim with his left shoulder hunched over, obviously in pain. I had been there myself, more than once, yet I felt nauseous as I pulled off my gloves and helmet and realized I had little experience responding to a roadside crisis. There was no cell coverage but a passing car informed the National Forest Police. Soon Officer Ron Malamphy had his red and blue lights flashing and the EMT's were summoned. He made Jim sit down and stop jabbering about riding his motorcycle back to town. I'm sure the badge and the Glock on his belt helped, but he may have been the first angel.

When the ambulance arrived, the medic in charge climbed out revealing a prosthesis on one leg and a cast on the other. Jim's first words were "What the heck happened to you?!"  Nevertheless, the responder went right to work and then said, "They cut off my foot. I could lay around and watch TV or I could get on with my life. I chose to get on with it." He may have been the second angel.

Jim was immobilized and taken to the ER in Morton, WA, about 25 miles away. With the help of Randle, WA fire chief, Jeff Jacques, I righted Jim's bike and rode it down the mountain to the fire station where Jeff assured me we could leave it locked up for several days if necessary. He gave me his personal cell number and said to call any time and he would bring us Jim's gear. He then shuttled me back up the mountain to get my motorcycle and I headed off to check on Jimmy. Jeff an angel?  Maybe.

Jim was released from the Emergency Department at Morton Community Hospital a couple of hours later with a broken collar bone, a sling to hold his shoulder in place, and a half-dozen Dilaudid. But Morton's two motels were both full and the nearest vacant rooms I could find were in Packwood, about 40 miles to the east. The town of Morton has its own traffic light but no cabs, rental cars, airport limos, or shuttle buses. Looking out at my loaded motorcycle with all my camping gear on the passenger seat, and then back at Jimmy still obviously in pain with his arm wrapped tight, I suspected we were on the verge of a transportation dilemma.  Time for another angel. Nina, the ER receptionist, was married to Morton's Chief of Police and she said if we waited for him to get back into town, he would drive us the 40 miles to Packwood.  When I explained our situation over the phone to our third angel, Fire Chief Jeff, he said he would make a couple of calls and find us a place to stay. Within an hour, he was at the ER. He had all of Jim's gear, had gotten us a room that night at the Randle Motel where the sign had read "No Vacancy," and was there to drive us the 17 miles back.

The Randle Motel is one of those "mom-and-pop" establishments occasionally still found on the side of 2-lane byways in America. It had a broken down pick-up camper in the yard, a shack with a variety of ham radio antennas protruding from the roof, and an old Ron Paul campaign sign leaning against a chain link fence. Like almost everyone else in Randle, WA, the owner, Frank, was an EMT and volunteer fire fighter and he lived behind the motel with his wife and two obese bulldogs, Baby and Thomas. He suggested we go across the road to Randle's only saloon, the Big Bottom, and get a sandwich and a shot of Jim Beam to "take off the edge." We had become accustomed to doing as we were told, and immediately went across the street.

Frank's place, an obvious gem dating from the 1950's, was spotlessly clean though a bit uncoordinated in its decor. It had wi-fi and a small TV in the corner. He said we could stay the entire next day but could not sleep there because he had a crew of Christmas bough cutters moving in for 10 weeks to cut branches for the "wreath trade." No problem. Fire Chief Jeff had arranged a room at another motel two miles down the road. I slept. Jim tried.

The next day's inquiries led me to a nearby locksmith who had just taken on a U-Haul franchise. Being a locksmith, he answered his cell phone around the clock. He was quite certain he could get us a 10-foot box truck by Monday morning. In the meantime, I decided to dig into the resource of last resort: The "Anonymous Book" of the BMW Motorcycle Owners Association. This little volume lists the first names and phone numbers of people organized by state and town who are willing to help out in various ways should you find yourself with a roadside problem, like a broken collar bone. 

Call number three reached the cell phone of Carol, angel #5. She lived near Olympia, about 90 miles from Randle, but was at a BMW motorcycle club camp-out on an island in northern Puget Sound. Not a problem, she assured me. She would be home by noon, would check with others in the group for a trailer, and be down to pick us up by the end of the day on Sunday. Beginning to feel a bit more secure, Jim and I walked to the grocery store to pick up some lunch.

Now Randle is a small place. In addition to a motel, it has a diner, a bar, a grocery, a tax preparation office, and a gas station/beer store where the forest road splits off of Highway 12. Most people in town seem to carry two-way radios tuned into the fire/EMT frequency. We had become a know entity in Randle-- the latest motorcycle victims of Forest Road 23. This meant that people greeted us, asked how Jim was doing and wished us well wherever we went-- the diner, the bar, the grocery. We didn't try the Randle Bible Church, but I'm sure they too would have been kind, concerned and hospitable. Quite an experience.

Angel No. 5

About the time I figured Jim could no longer pack and repack his stuff on the picnic table in front of the Randle Motel, Carol's 4-wheel-drive Toyota pulled in with a little trailer in tow. She greeted us like old friends and acted as though this was just another Sunday diversion. We learned she was a former climber, former sailboat racer, and former married woman, who now lived with three cats, five motorcycles, and 173 stuffed animals of various shapes and breeds. She had been up the Dawson Highway in the Yukon on a motorcycle and had roped-towed out a motorcyclist with a chest-full of broken ribs. In her quiet hours, she worked for the state as a hydro-geologist and she seemed to view the entire "Mt. St Helens rescue operation" as just another adventure in a life full of surprises and friends you have yet to meet.

Carol's "family room"

Once settled into Carol's comfortable house, I set to work arranging Jim's return to Virginia. A saved business card in my wallet led me to Federal Warehouse Co., an outfit that palletized and shipped motorcycles around the country. Some boxes from Carol's garage soon held all of Jim's gear, save the most valuable or necessary. Southwest Airlines flies from Seattle-Tacoma to Washington, D.C. and Mastercard was all it took to ticket a flight. By 1:00 PM Monday, motorcycle pick-up was scheduled from Carol's the following week, FedEx had Jim's boxes in the hopper, and the man himself was at the airport ready to explain to the TSA why he was flying cross-country with an insulated cooler holding nothing  but a toothbrush, a camera and a computer. Good thing he lost his new doo-rag. It just would have been the wrong "look" for the guardians of our national security.