Road Rash Queen

The Road Rash Queen - Link has graphic images from the days after this story happened.

By April Phillips

Brittany Morrow was 22 years old when she hopped on the back of her friend Shaun’s Suzuki GSX-R750 back in September 2005. She was planning to join the Marine Corps and had her heart set on becoming a combat correspondent. She also loved riding and considered herself an experienced passenger. She was excited to be on a sport bike—even if it was as a passenger.

To prepare herself, she put on a pair of sunglasses and shed her cowboy hat for an oversized helmet. She donned a pair of Capri pants and a sweatshirt over her bikini.

“I thought nothing of the fact that I had practically no protection against the asphalt if anything were to happen. I figured that we couldn’t get into a wreck. It simply wouldn’t happen to me,” Morrow said.

Forty-five minutes into the ride, Morrow wished she’d been a little more thorough when choosing her personal protective equipment.

“I started to slide back on the seat and felt the cool air fill the small space between my chest and Shaun’s back. I felt a rush of wind hit my face like a brick and our bodies separated,” she said.

The force of the wind ripped her off the seat in an instant. Soon, she was grinding across the surface of the highway, and Morrow said she felt every single inch of the 522-foot tumble.

“I didn’t lose consciousness, but I remember wishing that I had,” she said. “I knew this was far worse than anything I had ever gone through, and I was convinced I would not live to see the next day,” she said.

Morrow spent the next two months in a hospital. She had third-degree road rash-burns covering 55 percent of her body. She lost half of her left breast. She severed the tendons in her left pinky finger and dislocated her right big toe. The accident also caused indirect health problems. She lost a lot of blood and ended up contracting pneumonia. She suffered a blood infection, a blood clot on one of her legs, and an adverse reaction to one of her three blood transfusions.

“My road rash was so severe that my skin was not going to grow back on its own. I had lost too much surface area for the doctors to simply suture me together and send me home. My thighs were the only two places that had not received any abrasions,” Morrow described.

In order for her open wounds to heal, the doctors had to cut off a thick layer of healthy skin from her thighs, place it over her burns and surgically staple the new skin in place. There wasn’t enough skin on her thighs to graft all the wounds at once, so the doctors had to choose which areas to repair first and which had to wait. As a reaction to medication, her long, blond hair fell out.

It’s been nearly two and a half years since Morrow fell off that motorcycle. She knew the physical healing process would be a long, tough journey, but she also realized that she had some emotional scars.

“My heart felt heavy, knowing something I loved so much had almost cost me my life,” she said.

That’s when Morrow decided that she had to get her own motorcycle and ride again. She’s now a trained and licensed rider. She owns two motorcycles—a Yamaha R6 and a Honda CBR600F4i. She takes part in track days and is learning to stunt ride. What’s even sexier is that Morrow works on her own bikes. This time, she’s doing it right.

“Riding prepared for the worst possibilities will always help protect you from injury in even the smallest wreck. I believe that wearing gear is an attitude that can save your life. Accepting the risk before you even swing your leg over your bike and protecting yourself in case it happens will make you ride smarter and safer and might even prevent an accident altogether,” she said.

Morrow is a protective apparel spokesperson and has also purchased the rights to TheRoadRashQueen.com, an online forum where she can share her experience and urge others to always wear the proper gear. She travels the country telling others how to protect themselves. She enjoys taking her message to the military, because she feels grateful to give something back to those who protect America.

“Protect others by protecting yourself,” she said. “Ride with the attitude that you are needed so desperately by those around you, including your country. You can’t afford to risk riding without your gear.”

You know when...

You know when there's something that you would love to be able to do, but there's no point, because it's just not worth it? That's me. I'm currently on vacation with my family, and I've had a long day, and I would love to go to sleep, but, due to sleeping arrangements, if I go to sleep now, I'll just be woken up when my roommates come to bed. They're loud, and have pets, who are loud. There's just no point in going to sleep, but I have absolutely no desire to stay awake and do anything else either. Ugh.

Does God Have Free Will?

God is omnipotent. Being omnipotent means you can do anything you want. If God doesn’t have free will, he wouldn’t be very omnipotent. And being omnipotent means he can peer into his own future, to view it in perfect detail. But, if he sees his own future, then his choices are predetermined, and he's not omnipotent. Or, if he can’t see the future, then he’s not omnipotent. Omnipotence is trickier than it seems.

*No, this argument is not me declaring my belief in god, it's me liking the argument that Scott Adams brings up in his book God's Debris.

Your Video Game Owns Your SOUL

"UK games retailer GameStation revealed that it legally owns the souls of thousands of customers, thanks to a clause it secretly added to the online terms and conditions for its website. The 'Immortal Soul Clause' was added as part of an attempt to highlight how few customers read the terms and conditions of an online sale. GameStation claims that 88 percent of customers did not read the clause, which gives legal ownership of the customer's soul over to the UK-based games retailer. The remaining 12 percent of customers however did notice the clause and clicked the relevant opt-out box, netting themselves a £5 GBP gift voucher in the process."

Smart Women

WOMEN WHO KNOW THEIR PLACE

Barbara Walters, of 20/20, did a story on gender roles in Kabul, Afghanistan, several years before the Afghan conflict.

She noted that women customarily walked five paces behind their husbands.

She recently returned to Kabuland observed that women still walk behind their husbands. Despite the overthrow of the oppressive Taliban regime, the women now seem happy to maintain the old custom.

Ms Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, 'Why do you now seem happy with an old custom that you once tried so desperately to change?'

The woman looked Ms.Walters straight in the eyes, and without hesitation said, 'Land Mines.'

Truth

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers, wider freeways but narrower viewpoints. We spend more but have less; we buy more but enjoy is less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences but less time. We have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts but more problems; more medicine but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly, stay up too late, get too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We have learned how to make a living but not a life; we've added years to life but not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back but have trouble crossing the street to me the new neighbour. We've conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things but not better things. We've cleaned up the air but polluted the soul. We've split the atom but not our prejudice. We write more but learn less. We plan more but accomplish less. We've learned to rush but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever but have less communication. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men and short character; steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace but domestic warfare; more leisure but less fun; more kinds of food but less nutrition. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, of fancier houses but broken homes. These are the days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet to kill. It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom. (Moorehead, n.d.)

30 Day Shred - Day 1

Jillian thoroughly kicked my ass. Taking a shower after was hard, as my biceps hurt. Not quite as bad as when I first went to the gym, but I work out more now than I did when I first started at the gym. Few of the excersizes hurt while I was doing them, however now that I'm done and  showered I can feel the pain starting to creep into my muscles. There's also a very good chance that I have not been that sweaty in a long time. This could be because I did the workout right after work while the house was hot. I've got to get into the habit of getting up early and doing it first thing in the morning. Then it's cooler in the house, and I'll mostly have time for it.

In other news, I'm going to Fabricland right away to get a pattern for.. something. I found this great website: Modcloth which has all kinds of retro and indie dresses. I'd like to eventually start making those kinds of dresses. But, we'll see how this first stuff goes and reevaluate later. I'm sure my grandmother would be so proud of me if I did. She is a wonderful seamstress, and my mother as wel. Sometimes you just have to follow the family tradition, even if it is initially hoisted upon you by force.

Also, nasty breakups are not fun. A tip to the break-up-ee: Never ask for a commitment from the person who just broke up with you. Also, if they ask for something small, like time and distance, give it to them. It's the only way they won't hate.