One beautiful night in June of 1982, I was cruising along Portage Ave in Winnipeg on my Yamaha XS1100, minding my own business, enjoying the night. Suddenly a 1968 Ford Galaxie 500 made an illegal left turn directly in front of me. I struck the right front corner of the Ford, braking my left leg and ankle, the bike fell on it's right side, careening along the road, up the entrance of a nearby self serve gas bar, down the sidewalk where I grazed the concrete base of a bus stop bench with my head, then continued along until it struck the barrier between the gas bar exit and the neighboring restaurant. I catapulted over the rail and into the restaurant parking lot while the Yamaha headed back towards Portage Ave. Somewhere along the way I also cracked my left wrist and broke a few bones in my left hand.
More recently. in December of 2013, one cold afternoon, I was working on an overhead door in an unheated warehouse with a polished concrete floor. I had my extension ladder set up and had made 3 or 4 trips up and down the ladder to repair the door. I was making what should have been (and ultimately was) my last trip up the ladder, and had just reached the top of the door, about 16 feet, when I felt the ladder slip.
My first and only thought was, "**** this is gonna hurt". Now, almost 7 years later, it still does! I was right! I broke both wrists and 3 teeth, took 7 stitches over my right eye, 3 in my left leg, broke my nose, and had a concussion.