I’ve got a story to tell Steemit and while it is action packed, I consider it a crappy story considering the end result. So with a heavy heart, here goes. I’m realistically the best person to tell this tale as I witnessed the accident and was there nearly every step of the way, from the street to the hospital and eventually to home.
It all started last week, when our friend and roommate @modprobe decided he was going to celebrate a large payday by purchasing himself a motorcycle, for the purposes of getting around the city and Mexico. All things considered, it was a good idea. Motorcycles are extremely common here and it really makes sense why in a city like Acapulco and a beautiful country like Mexico. John negociated the terms for our own motorcycle, which would allow us to both have fun with him and save money on our traveling. So we went through the necessary steps of changing cryptocurrency for pesos and did the job of finding our bikes.
It was a few days of negotiating money and looking around before we found bikes we liked and had the pesos to make it happen. We actually acquired @modprobe’s bike before we did ours as we were waiting on the rest of the pesos. We just barely had enough for the one he wanted that day, and we had him follow us home on it.
It took a bit of getting used to for him, partially due to the fact that a new bike has it’s quarks. Between sitting in the store and the fact that the engine isn’t worn in at all, it’s not an easy learning curve. We had some help from a Mexican who looked a bit bummed to be helping the gringo with his fancy new motorcycle (that was nicer than his own) but after a few minutes, we were on the road headed back to the main bay, stopping to get him some gas on the way.
We made it home fine and that was the end of that day. The next morning we had plans to get the rest of the money and our bikes, which @modprobe decided to stay home for to get some work done.
We went and got our bike and ended up finding a better cheaper option that we got. We also found one that @modprobe would have preferrred, but it was a bit late at that point. We purchased it, got on it and rode home. John did a great job adjusting to driving with me on the back, even though he was apparently a bit freaked out. The only issue with the bike was that we needed to go all the way across town with it to get the battery looked at, as the store employees suspected that the battery was no good.
We got @modprobe and headed out to the area where we were told to go, which was actually a lot farther than we really needed to go. We took it as a chance to check out the area and I took those pictures I posted earlier today, as well as the ones of the bike in this article. On the way back we lost @modprobe and he just went on home and apparently did just fine, other than getting lost a few times. We found the dealership who told us what we already knew, the battery problem had resolved itself.
We met up at home and decided to go out for food, with the plan to stop by our friends restaurant to visit and show him our bikes. All of this went according to plan and we had a pretty good time. I got to share my kombucha with my favorite local friend and he shared the name of a Mexican fermented drink that it reminded him of, Tepache. Before long, we decided to leave so we jumped back on the Coastera, the road that lines the beach here. The plan was to hit the gas station so @modprobe could get some gas and get home.
Anyone who’s been to Acapulco knows that the center median of the Coastera is filled with trees and bushes for most of it. We were making a left turn and there was an oncoming motorcycle that we didn’t see until it nearly hit us. From what we can tell, it was hugging that center median. As that happened, I immediately thought of @modprobe and looked over at him yelling his name, as I already knew what was happening.
The bike with two people on it went slamming into the side of @modprobe’s turning motorcycle and for a moment both bike and all three people were tangled together in a sort of mechanical tornado before they all spat out in random directions. @modprobe fell to the ground, with his face smacking into it and the rest of his body to follow. What lay on the Coastera was a heap of metal and bloody people that was a scary sight, at the least.
Somewhere in the process of watching this happen, I dropped my leg off the peg of my bike and burnt the HELL out of my leg on the exhaust pipe. This is now my constant reminder of what happened that day, of how easily things can go wrong. I’ve not even burnt myself this bad glassblowing, to give you an idea of severity.
We stopped the bike and ran over to the scene, where @modprobe was bleeding all over the place. The street, the other passengers and even me ended up smeared in blood from the wounds on his face. It was a pretty gruesome sight to say the least. As he came to conciousness, it was clear that he had suffered some sort of head injury as he didn’t seem to have any idea where he was. Things came back slowly over the next few hours, although he still doesn’t remember the accident.
We did our best to comfort him and keep him calm, while deflecting questions from the cops. We could only give them his name and age, although they were extremely interested in us. It was honestly a terrifying situation, all things considered. The fact that he was laying in the street covered in blood, terrified and not even remembering how he made it to Mexico was really scary.
Another person in my (our) situation would have left the scene, especially considering we weren’t directly involved in the accident. We didn’t though and even though it was really scary at times, I’m glad we stayed.
We did our best to focus on getting him to a hospital and we did, although we took him to the wrong one. Private hospitals are prepaid here, meaning they do no work until they have cash or a credit card. Considering he had neither on him, we had to get him to another hospital.
The whole time there were police buzzing around and it made us nervous for many reasons. The simplest was that these people seemed hell bent on taking advantage of our injured gringo friend, and we weren’t interested in allowing that to happen. We had to make a lot of tough calls that night but all things considered, we did the best we could for him while costing him the least amount of money.
I was surprised at the hospital we took him to, who saw his skin color and were immediately interested in his money. By the end of it they wanted 20,000 pesos to even look at him which was absolutely ridiculous. They wouldn’t even give him pain medication. When he asked for water, they refused because of his injuries. I fought with them on the fact that they were refusing to see him and after a bit of fighting, I was able to drip water into his mouth using gauze.
I had a lot of little conversations with @modprobe at the hospital, very few of which he remembers. At a point he started asking for essential oils, as he’s our essential oil guy. The next day when I showed up with a bag of the ones he requested, he reported not remembering that conversation. He remembered enough to recite his parent’s phone numbers, which allowed me to contact them to tell them what was going on. While they seemed worried, they seemed relieved that he had friends to take care of things for him.
Ambulances were apparently busy so we looked into getting a private one, which was a whopping 700 pesos. Considering he had that in his pocket, we agreed and shuttled him to the general hospital where nurses immediately started taking care of him, despite the fact that the place seemed to be stuffed to the gills with patients.
A bittersweet moment arrived when I scanned the room and found our friend Lily, the taco lady that we are fond of. We had actually gotten tacos from her stand, wondering why she wasn’t there. It turned out she was spending the evening in that emergency room with what appeared to be her mother. She came over to say hello at a point, visibly saddened by @modprobe’s appearance. Apparently she was there all night too.
Accidents are handled differently here and because he was technically at fault, it was his responsibility to pay. This is totally fine, save for the fact that the police were using this as a chance to milk pesos from him. They pushed for negotiations to happen at 2 in the morning, which was bullshit considering the fact that @modprobe wasn’t even awake in the hospital at that time.
Clearly trying to get something out of it, the police pushed is to make agreements we shouldn’t really be allowed to make. So we stood our ground for our friend despite threats and intimidation and it ended, for the time being. We have the contact of the people involved and have every intention of making good on the agreements we did make with them (which @modprobe seems to have approved of), but we are not interested in paying bribes.
Throughout the situation, we had a few people who were really crucial in how the situation played out. Two local friends were able to dispel police interest in the situation when we could not, and we really appreciate that. They were also valuable translators, which made it a lot easier on us. A community member came to the hospital and spent the night with @modprobe, eventually helping him leave the next afternoon. Between everyone, we were able to do our best to handle things for our friend while he could not.
We left the hospital with the impression that we had a friend working within the system to help. All I can really say is that they were called off and we weren’t notified until hours later, which made it hard for us to do anything about it. We spent a few hours making phone calls, eventually heading to the hospital.
Last we had seen @modprobe, we had no idea of the details of his condition. We were worried that there was a severe head injury, considering the fact that I watched his head bounce off the concrete. The spotty memory and swelling was of concern. So we had no idea his condition when we left to see him and when we made it to the hospital, we were told that he had just left a half hour before. Several older Mexican women identified him with a limp and by motioning to lip and eyebrow, both of which were pretty messed up on our dear friend.
So we headed off, hoping he was headed home. We realized that he didn’t have his house keys anymore from the accident, so we stopped at the place of the friend that went to stay with him and sure enough, there he was. He had a limp and a swollen face, but he was there.
Sadly, he’s joined the broken face club by breaking his right cheekbone, and apparently a few teeth in the process. He’s bumped and bruised all over otherwise, but mobile in the important regards. All things considered, he was very lucky although I know for a fact he does not feel lucky. He does need surgery, but it’s not quite the surgery I needed so hopefully the recovery will be easier.
As someone who’s hurt their own head pretty badly (albiet way differently) I totally get much of what he’s dealing with. It seriously sucks to deal with this sort of thing and every time I look at him I am reminded of how I felt in the weeks following my accident. I also understand the long term implications of accidents like these, so I’m saddened at the things he may have to face in the future as far as residual pain is concerned. It gets really old really quick in just about every regard and people constantly telling you you’re lucky doesn’t help despite their best intentions, because you don’t feel lucky. So I feel you, friend, and I’m sorry.
But @modprobe, you really are very lucky and I think deep down you know it. As your friends, we’ll do what we have to in order to help you through this, both with the surgery and recovery and getting the legal side of this handled. I know when I had my accident friends like John made the difference, so I’m doing what I can in that regard.
There you have it Steemit, now you know why we disappeared for several days here. Not only was I sick, but this happened right in the thick of it which made for an extremely tough several days for everyone involved.
We still ride our bike and have since the time of the accident. We needed to use it to follow the ambulance. It really is a much faster, more convenient mode of travel all things considered.
The bike we purchased and ride around is eventually intended to become my own, for me to use to get around the city. All things considered, its a bit of a frightening proposition. This whole experience has taught me just how easy it is for things to go bad, so now I’ll at least be able to go into this with a reality based view of what can happen and how easily.
While it’s not back in his possession yet, @modprobe has said he will most likely eventually get back on the bike. Considering the terms of the accident, I understand where he’s coming from. I wouldn’t be running back, but I wouldn’t be so quick to shun the activity all together myself.
Anyway, thanks for reading and supporting. We’re doing our best to get caught up and ahead on things here at the farm. As busy people know though, as things get crossed off the list that list always gets longer.
Until Next Time, Safe Travels!
