Dirt bike Crash

            Throughout my life, I have suffered through many injuries, from things like jumping over a fence to almost cutting my finger off with a pocket knife. However, there is one injury that I really think can be applied to life in a profound way. This injury occurred about three years ago when I was teaching myself how to ride a dirt bike. It was perhaps only the second or third time I had ridden the little 75 cc red dirt bike and it was the first time I had ever gotten any real speed on it. I had taken it across the street to the church parking lot because it was a lot easier to ride there than in the dirt. I was on the far side of the church when I hit it into third gear and hit about 30 miles per hour. I became too exhilarated to pay much attention to something like safety, so as you can imagine, the crash came. There was a long, thick pipe laid across the ground that I did not notice until I had run it over. I flew off the bike about 5 feet and skidded my way to a stop on the hard, unforgiving asphalt. The pain was excruciating. I crawled over to my bike immediately to assess the damage. Part of the exhaust pipe had broken off, the gear shifter was bent completely out of shape, and the hand bars were a little scraped. All in all, it could have been much worse, I thought. Then I looked down to see the damage done to myself. About a foot of the skin on my right leg had been flayed off. Road rash, one of the most painful injuries you can get on a dirt bike, was mine to bear. After it quit bleeding, it then started to scab up. I could not even twitch my leg without it cracking and bleeding for a couple of days. After this experience, you can be sure that I did not wear shorts when I went dirt bike riding ever again. I also was a much more careful rider from then on.

            This injury taught me a two-fold lesson. The first was that we should prepare ourselves however possible for the trials that we have in front of us. Even if we think that a metaphorical crash is not likely to happen in our lives, we should be prepared for it to happen. The second lesson is to think before you leap. We need to be on the lookout for things that can trip us up in our daily lives. If we are watchful for things that are right in front of us, and for things that are in our future, we can avoid most major crashes. This injury has permanently etched itself into my memory and on my leg. I will not be forgetting this lesson anywhere in the near future. However, accidents do happen so I will be prepared.