The other night I was in Stuttgart having just come out of the railway station and waiting to cross the main road. There was a screech of tyres, a bang like an explosion, and a motorcyclist flew through the air about 5m away from me. He flew over the VW Tiguan he’d obviously rear ended, over a “Keep Right” sign, which his very large motorbike smashed into, and landed head first in the road, before skidding into the kerb, at which point his helmet came off, and ended up blood smeared and unconscious on his back on the other side of the road, lying in a horrible position and bleeding profusely. Horrified I ran to help and called an ambulance on my mobile. A number of people also came across and started administering first aid. I’m ashamed to say I’ve never been on a first aid course.
Within 5 minutes an ambulance had appeared, along with the paramedics. Some enterprising onlookers had started directing traffic. I’d never been confronted with a near death experience before and just wanted to ascertain whether the guy was going to survive. Amazingly, by the time the paramedics tried to put him onto a stretcher, he was actually trying to stand up. The streams of blood were from a bleeding nose and he didn’t want to be taken to a hospital. The driver of the car he’d hit, a young woman around 20, was distraught having presumably also thought he was dead and was being treated by medics.
The police arrived, took statements and measured the skid marks which were quite extensive. The motorcyclist, by the way, I guess was mid fifties. Me? I’m going to enroll on a first aid course. But the scene of this guy flying through the air and crashing head first into the kerb will stay with me a very long time.
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A very lucky motorcyclist new
A very lucky motorcyclist new
