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The driver, whose name is not being released by the Winona County Sheriff’s Office, caught the lip of the road about 12:40 p.m. while winding a corner about halfway up Haase Hill on Country Road 110, Deputy John Meyer said. The motorcycle slid about 75 feet across gravel, landed in a short ditch and just missed a deep ravine and barbed-wire fence.
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Lonnie Krackow of Borkowski's Towing, left, and Winona County Sheriff's Deputy John Meyer pull a wrecked Suzuki motorcycle from a ditch Monday along County Road 110 north of Stockton. The motorcyclist, who was wearing a helmet, was airlifted to Gunderson-Lutheran in La Crosse, Wis.
(Photo by Melissa Carlo/Winona Daily News) |
“He was in and out of consciousness,” said Deputy Kate Rusher, who responded to the accident with emergency personnel from Minnesota City, Stockton and Winona. “He did have a helmet. They said it was the one thing that pretty much saved him.”
More Minnesotans are riding motorcycles than ever before. Severe crashes like the one Thursday are also on the rise, leading to an increase in motorcycle-related fatalities.
“The problem we’re seeing is motorcycle fatalities have gone up at a much greater rate than the number of riders,” said Pat Hahn, motorcycle safety representative and information officer for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. “We don’t have all that more crashes; what we have is more severe crashes. More riders are dying in crashes than they have before.”
There were 1,496 reported motorcycle accidents across the state in 2006, according to the most recent data available from DPS. More than 65 percent of the injured were not wearing helmets. Of the 70 motorcycle riders who died, 55 weren’t wearing helmets.
So far in 2008, five motorcycle riders have died in crashes, down from 10 at this time last year. But since 1998, motorcycle fatalities have increased 71 percent.
The spike corresponds with the increasing number of riders, Hahn said. About 230,000 Minnesotans have registered motorcycles — a record high, said Hahn, who attributes the increase to baby boomers with more time on their hands and high gas prices that have prompted scooter and moped sales to double over the past three years.
While helmet use isn’t a silver bullet, it can make a difference between life and death, he said. The department advises all riders to wear a helmet and full protective gear, including long pants, jacket, boots, gloves and eye protection.
It’s unclear if the driver in Thursday’s wreck was wearing all the recommended gear. Black tennis shoes, metal fragments and a black helmet with a smashed faceguard lay next to the mangled bike shortly after Community Memorial Hospital’s Med-Link helicopter arrived.
A spokeswoman from Gundersen Lutheran’s emergency room said the driver was listed in critical but stable condition as of late Thursday evening.
Contact reporter Amber Dulek at amber.dulek@lee.net or (507) 453-3513.
