Tommy Stone of Limington.

It’s hard to say what kind of animal ambled out in front of Tommy Stone and his motorcycle on Sunday and doesn’t really matter, anyway. He knew he didn’t want to hit it. He tried to swerve and crashed his bike, a 2012 Suzuki DRZ400.

“Even thinking back on it now all I see is a two-foot-tall grey blob,” he said in a message from bed. “It wasn’t really scurrying like a porcupine, so I’m assuming raccoon? Maybe fox?”

Tommy left home in Limington and rode up Route 113, through Fryeberg to Evans Notch. Then, he came down through Bethel and took the Greenwood Road to get to Route 117.

I’ll let Tommy take it from there:

“I remember looking down at the speedo because I knew the speed limit drops to 35 shortly after the hill I was going up. I saw my speed was 47mph, and I was happy to see the 86 awesome miles on the trip meter. When I looked up I saw something in the road. For whatever reason, I didn’t think I could swerve around or hit it head on without really bad things happening. So, I went into a panic stop and felt the rear (wheel) lock almost instantly. It gets a little fuzzy — whether the front locked as well and washed out on the left side, or if just the rear locked and I tried to counter steer to correct the tail locking — but a split-second later, I was sliding on my ass and then tumbling to a stop looking face down at the yellow line.”

“I probably laid on the ground for 5-10 seconds before I really understood what had just happened. I knew I needed to get the bike off the road and knew I needed to get myself off the road. I remember trying to stand up and feeling pain in my left ankle. I kind of hobbled over to my bike, 15 or so feet away.”

“I stood on my right leg and picked the bike up almost effortlessly. Adrenaline is an amazing thing. I hopped the bike over to the side of the road in the dirt, and tried to put the kick stand down with my left foot. As soon as it hit the kick stand, I felt excruciating pain. Then, I tried to put weight on it again to use the other foot. No luck. I ended up using my hand (to put the kickstand down).”

Tommy Stone on the side of the road after his crash.

“By then, the adrenaline had worn off a bit and I started to get a little light-headed and short of breath. I took my helmet off and laid it on the dirt and laid down with my head propped up on it. I pulled my phone out, called my dad who was at our camp in Greenwood. He came and picked me up and we headed to the emergency room in Norway.”

“Lucky for me, he was only 10 minutes down the road. Probably a dozen cars passed by me, not a single one stopped to see why a motorcycle rider was laying on the ground on the side of the road.”

An x-ray of Tommy Stone’s injured foot.

At the hospital, Tommy found out he had four broken toes, a fractured big toe and road rash covering a better part of his left butt cheek.

It’s bad enough, but Tommy says his safety gear saved him from more road rash and serious injury.

“Gear really saved most of my skin on this one,” he said.

When he went down, Tommy was wearing a Bilt brand adventure jacket, an HJC helmet, carbon fiber riding gloves, and Sidi brand adventure riding boots.

“Helmet is beat up, riding jacket is beat up, gloves are beat up, sidi boots are beat up,” he said. “But, every piece of clothing helped save me from getting killed.

He almost left home without his good boots on, too.

“As I was about to leave the house with my normal street shoes on, my girlfriend kinda laughed and said ‘how come you have riding boots if you never wear them?'” Tommy said. “Naturally, I responded with ‘alright mom, I’ll wear them.’ I’m not sure what the outcome would have been had I not worn the boots, but I’m sure it would have been much worse.”

“Something ran in front of me on the bike. If I hit it head on I probably would have gone head over heels. So I locked the rear and lowsided. Ass has road rash. Toes are broken. Other than that, just a Few cuts and scrapes. Helmet is beat up, riding jacket is beat up, gloves are beat up, sidi boots are beat up. But, every piece of clothing helped save me from getting killed. ‪#‎ridesafe‬ ‪#‎allthegearallthetime‬”