Hi all, Here is the "story" of how I had my accident. Bobbie After lunch in Denville at Bond’s Ice Cream polor, we dropped my mom off. When she closed the door to the van, she leaned her head in, pointed at the dirt-bike tied up in the back and said “I don’t want you riding that thing” I told her “ OK, I won’t” The thought actually hadn’t crossed my mind, because a few month prior I had tried to ride the very same bike in Eddie’s driveway, but ended up crashing it into their garage. Once we got to the make shift “track” Eddie unloaded to van. We could hear and periodical see a young 12 year old boy riding his small dirt bike too as he buzzed around the track. Eddie put his helmet on and hopped on his brother’ s bike, started it up immediately and took off. I watched as he did “donunts” which is spinning the bike around in circles leaving the front tire in one place. Then he would go way up a large mound of dirt that had been plowed up high by bulldozer’s who were clearing the land of it’s corn fields, making it ready for a new office building complex. Eddie would also make the bike ride on just the back wheel and sometimes stand on the seat while the bike was moving. Tired and exhilarated Eddie stopped right next to me very quickly and asked “Do you want to give it a try, it’s fun”? I told him a few times that I really didn’t want to, without giving him any reason. Finally I just blurted out “For once I want to do something my mother told me to do” He wouldn’t hear of it. I remember him saying at one time “You know you want to” Eddie said as he was strapping on his sweaty helmet. Next thing I remember I was sitting on the 250 Kawasaki wearing my ped sneakers, jeans and a short sleeved blue shirt I bowered from my brother Gary, while he was away in Korea with the Army. Eddie explained to me again how to control the dirt bike. “…turn this to give the bike gas, squeeze here for the break, keep your feet up” “See it’s easy and there’s nothing around here for you to run into” Reminding me teasingly of my crash into his family’s garage in Newark. I played around with the bike to get a feel of how it would handle on the dirt. At one point I accidentally went over a small clump of packed down earth, a bump. The bike lifted off the ground slightly. I loved the feeling and asked Eddie how I could do that jump higher and faster? He explained “When the front wheel of the bike hits the bump, give the bike all the gas and lift the handle bars up at the same time” I decided to back up a little bit so I could build up more speed. I distinctly remember looking up at the sky and at my watch, it was 4:15 and looked like it was going to rain soon. I told myself ‘I’ll just try this once because I need to get back home to pick up my sister DeeDee from her girlfriends house and bring my other sister Patti’s girlfriend back to her own house before dinner. I had promised my mom that I would do that for her today. My eyes were fixed on the jump and I was determined to do this right. As the bike picked up quite a bit of speed I saw the front wheel hit the jump, so I twisted the throttle with my left hand aggressively, giving the bike all the power it had, just like Eddie said. Immediately I realized that I had forgotten a very important step in doing a proper jump. I didn’t lift the handle bars up. I got so excited about building up good speed and timing the gas with hitting the bump, that I just totally forgot about the handlebars. This can’t be good, I thought. At that second, everything began moving in slow motion even though I had built up enough speed to fly through the air at 30 mph. Some how I instinctively knew what exactly was going to happen, actually one of two things, I just didn’t know yet which was going to prove to be true. I was going to crash and break my neck and be killed or be paralyzed for life. The bike dropped away from me and fell the ground and I continued through the air like a rocket headed for the large 25 foot high mound of dirt. I hit dead head on, my chin went into my chest and I fell to the ground like a rag doll, resting on my left side in a fetal position. I opened my eyes and saw only dirt, I thought I was dead and buried; this is what it was like to die. Just then Eddie turned me over onto my back. “Are you alright”? he asked nervously. Realizing I wasn’t dead, I calmly answered “No, I broke my neck” “How do you know that”? he asked confused “Because I can’t move” I stated as a matter of fact. “Did you try to move”? he was getting annoyed now “No” I told him “Well try” he demanded I looked over at my right arm which was now lying outstretched away from my body seemingly unattached, I concentrated on moving it with all my might. But it only moved about a half an inch. “That’s it” I said to Eddie Just then the 12 year old boy who had been riding around when we got there came over and asked “Is she alright”? “No, I broke my neck. I need an ambulance and a blanket because I’m in shock” I stated as a matter of fact very calmly. Bobbie Humphreys C-5,6.7 motorcross jumping accident in 1973 at 17 Married to Sweet Pete Living in Parsippany, New Jersey
