Extreme Full Throttle – “Ouch, There’s a Leg in my Leg”
By: Steve Murrin, ‘The Biker Lawyer’

            Ever hit an animal on your bike?  I must get eight or ten “I hit my neighbor’s dog” calls a year.  One guy wanted to sue someone when a deer jumped in front of him and wrecked both him and his bike.  He didn’t care who, he just wanted to sue.  Worst I’ve ever done is a squirrel, thank God.  We all have our stories and have heard 10 more.  I personally have heard it all.  Bears, deer, dogs, rabbits, loose cattle, varmints, you name it.  Bike-animal collisions can be deadly.  Imagine living in Maine and hitting a moose.  At 1,000 pounds, you better be paid up on the life insurance.  With all the collisions I hear about, the best true story is from my childhood and I’ll share it with you here.
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, before law school, before college, when life was a big question mark and high school graduation was still a future event, I hung around a mechanic shop much like a lot of you had in your neighborhood as a kid.  You know the drill.  A few unshaven grease monkeys, wrenching beat up cars and bikes in stained blue overalls.  The constant smell of oil covered concrete floors smattered with old flattened cigarette butts.  The absolute vulgarity and profanity that comes with unfiltered Camels and 6-packs of Genesee Cream Ale drank copiously throughout the day.  Just the kind of place your Mom would freak about if she knew you hung out there after school. 

How else does a teenager learn that a “Crane” is not a bird but a make of camshaft or that “Holly” is not a low lying shrub and “Hooker” isn’t necessarily that girl you thought you were doing great with (‘till the bill came).  In my local shop there was a biker named Pete.  He was German, complete with thick accent and he was, of course, a BMW fanatic.  He worked on his bikes in that garage and taught me a lot about opposed twins.  One fall he just stopped being there.  Gone.  Where’s Pete?  “Wreck”, was the answer from under a hood.  Beat it kid, I’m busy.  Months later I remember seeing him at a coffee shop, crutches under arms with a full leg cast.  This is the story he told me, and I have every reason to believe in it’s absolute truth.

Claims he was on the New York State Throughway (87) on his Beemer cruising highway speed when a deer came from nowhere.  At full gallop the deer ran across the road, bringing bike and deer together rather violently.  Pete claims he didn’t have time to brake.  Remembers the awful sound of the impact and the tumbling that went on “forever”.  Stunned, he told me he ‘awoke’ in the road, 20 yards from the bike and was being jerked in the roadway as if someone was pulling his leg (no, not the joke kind silly).  He wasn’t aware what or why but he was being dragged towards the road’s edge.   It was a few minutes of shock and excruciating pain before he realized that he had a deer’s front leg pierce his shin between the bone and the calf muscle.  (Cool, eh?)  He hit the deer with such force, its front hoof pierced his lower leg through and through, past the deer’s knee joint.  The deer had survived initial impact, as did Pete.  The poor animal frantically tried to get up and run but could not pull its leg back out of Pete’s.  Pete said the pain was unbearable as the deer kept dragging him off to the side of the road while trying to get up in an attempt to get back to the woods.  Pete said he tried everything.  He even claimed to have broken a hand attempting to punch the deer unconscious but could not do so.  He told me he tied to choke the deer to death but that further enraged the animal in its frantic attempt to escape.  He said he thought of the knife he kept in the bike to cut the deer’s leg off but could not get to the bike.

He told me when the NY State Troopers arrived, they would not shoot the deer as he was ‘too close’ and could not be extricated from the animal and may be hit if a bullet ricocheted.  Cops call an animal control officer to drug the deer to death.  He would not do it as he was afraid the lethal injection could find its way to Pete’s bloodstream as they were like Siamese twins, Pete and the deer.  The story ends as it was told to me.  A passing butcher meat cleavered the deer’s leg clean off (while still alive).  Pete says the deer got up and ran three legged into the woods, never to be seen again.  Pete was rushed by ambulance with the deer’s leg (12 inches of it) sticking out of his.  The surgery went well.  A little infection had set in and hampered his recovery, but he eventually got better.  He still limps to this day.  The shop still smells of grease and beer with cigarette smoke thrown in.  I took my two year-old son there last summer and he met my old friend Pete.  Picture the scene.  “Yea Brendan, this is old Pete, Daddy’s friends for 30 years.  Taught me how to work on bikes, and ya see that deer bone hangin on the wall ….?  (Kid loved it. Wife, not so much).

TRUE STORY

Remember, ride fun, ride safe, and when life lets you, ride Full Throttle.