 We lose too many good people in off-duty ground safety mishaps. These are losses we cannot afford. More important, they don't have to happen. And when they do, they destroy families and cost us combat capability. We've put together a short video describing some of these mishaps. You'll get the story directly from airmen who were lucky enough to survive these accidents. They volunteered to share their experiences so you can learn from them. Watch carefully and please put into practice what you learn. We have to exercise this self-discipline that will help us avoid similar accidents. Remember we need all of you alive and well to keep us combat ready and in the fight. That makes you our number one priority and safety a top responsibility for all of us. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The accident started out getting together with my buddies to go out and get something to eat or drink or go to the pool hall. We ended up coming back pretty early that night and the first thing I automatically did was go straight to my bike and put the keys in and started up and my friends were smart enough to take my keys and my helmet. We all ended up going back inside and they kept my keys from me and we drank quite a bit. I think about one o'clock that night I had decided to tell them I was going to go to bed. I need my keys so I can get back and go into my apartment. I had grabbed my keys and just went straight to my bike without my helmet. I just wore a sleeve shirt and it was a pretty cold night. I had took off without them catching me and I remember driving down the road that I had wrecked on. I had come up towards the T intersection and I remember being very tired and very cold. I kept laying down on my bike and popping back up real quick so the wind would rush and wake me up. But I was so cold so I kept lying back down. I guess I had just passed out one of those times and I told disregard for a stop sign at this T intersection. I hit a curb. I guess me and the bike ended up about 70 feet from the road. I sustained. I had broke both the bones of my shin. I broke my upper leg which was a complete break. I had completely broke my upper arm which was a compound fracture as well. My wrist was a compound fracture and I had two middle couple breaks. It was actually my hand where I rolled my two fingers. Both compound fractures. I ended up getting a rod in my shin, a rod in my upper leg, a rod in my upper arm and a plate in my wrist. And some exterior pins for a couple of months in my hand. I also had a concussion that put me out for a couple of days and just some pretty bad road rash. I definitely feel like I let everybody down. I let my coworkers, my supervisors, I feel like I let my squadron down. I feel like I let my family down. All we were told was that he was in the hospital. He had been found in a field. He had had a motorcycle accident. But they kind of indicated that things were not too bad. But probably I should get there. And I live about three hours away from the base. And I got to call at 10.30 and I was there at 2.30. And I was scared to death. The whole drive, I only remember the drive. I just remember my knuckles were white on the steering wheel. And I had to think about that and relax. I couldn't imagine what I was going to see. I couldn't get there fast enough. And it just felt like every mother's nightmare had come true for me. And the unknown was just terrifying. My accident affected my mother pretty emotionally at first. It was pretty hard for her to see her son there in a coma, not responsive. Not knowing if I'm going to wake up like a vegetable. I walked in his room and I actually started to walk back out of the room. I didn't think with him. I thought it was somebody else. Because he was totally disfigured. She did real good enough breaking down in front of me. Because she was looking out for me. It really hurts me now to know that I wasn't there to be there for her. And to comfort her like she was for me at that time. His head was swollen to twice the size that normally his left side of his face was completely scraped up and bloody. And his eye was horrible. And his left side was all bandaged. And he was so still. I couldn't touch him anywhere. Everything was bandaged. I bent down and I grabbed his hand and I said, I'm here. And I think he was comatose at the time. But he squeezed my hand and his little tear came out of his eye. And I just went to my knees. Military, it's still yet to be determined if I'm going to be separated or not. I always have that in the back of my head. I think what impacted me the most was when I realized that there was a very strong possibility that he may not get full function of his arm back. And that scared me as far as what was that going to do to his air force career. What was that going to do to his career anywhere? I didn't drive drunk all the time. I know the first time I did it, you know, I was worried about like, oh, what am I doing? And then after I was on, oh, nothing happened. I'm fine. And, you know, it just kept, you know, every time I did it after that, it just got easier and easier to do it. I know full well how hard it is to make the right decision when you're a young man or a woman out there just full of life and just wanting to get out there and race. But you got to remember that it's not just you, you know, your whole family is involved. And how would you feel if your sister or your mother caused something to hurt her or him and had a horrible accident? You know, you're not immortal. I know you feel immortal, but you're not. And you've got to be really aware of what's going around you. And if you're going to get a motorcycle, if you're going to get a hot rod car, you know, educate yourself as much as you can and always remember that your family is there and you have a responsibility to them to keep yourself safe. It's changed me drastically and I still, I really still have no idea what's going to happen. It's a scary thing to think about, you know, which every day I think about it. It's hard to, it's kind of hard to deal with. Me and a couple buddies, we decided that we were going to sit around my one friend's house and just do some drinking, have a good time, you know, whatever, relax while I was at home on leave. And then we drank for a couple hours. It was probably until about 12, 30, something like that in the morning. And all of my buddies, they decided that they were going to go downstairs to my buddy's room and, you know, watch a movie or go to bed, whatever, crash out. I went outside, went to smoke one last cigarette and then I was planning on going down. Well, I went outside, smoked my cigarette and then as I put my lighter back in my pocket, I found the keys to my buddy's motorcycle. At that time, I was like, okay, well, you know, I'm going to go visit somebody else while I'm at home on leave because I only had a couple days to be at home. So I went out to the garage, went to see, you know, if my buddy's bike was there, got on it, started it up, opened the garage door and I took off. I drove to one of my friend's house. I don't know if they weren't there at the time or what was going on that I didn't go in or stop by it. But I guess I went down out of their driveway and that's pretty much the last thing that I remember. The next thing that I remember is I woke up in the hospital. What happened between that time was I took a left out of the driveway. Soon after that, I took a right on another road. I drifted across my lane of traffic through the other lane of traffic and once I hit the grass because it was moist because it's very humid up there. The front tire slipped out from underneath me and laid the bike down on its right side and I hit the pavement. It wasn't like I was up working or anything. I think I had gotten up and gone to the bathroom and I had heard the phone ring. We do not have a phone in or upstairs until I got downstairs and got the call. It had already rang four times and the answering machine picked up so then there was no message on the answering machine. I went down to check the message none there and in the process of the way our house is situated, I saw a car pull up. I knew Jim was not home at the time and I saw a car pull up and it was a state police car. I fractured my cheekbone right underneath my right eye and I broke a bone right off to the right side of my eye. And then I had road rash all down the right side of my face, patch on my shoulder on my arms and down my left leg. I was worried for Jim. I really was because he's taken a lot of bad spills in his life and things but this seemed more severe than others and I was afraid for him that he was alone. That's a mother's heart. He had to go through this alone. I stayed in the hospital for a day and a half. I got released the very next day in the afternoon somewhere around four o'clock. But I had to come back the following Monday to have facial reconstructive surgery where they put a plate into my head. They cut me open. When I went in he was laying flat out on a hospital bed and he was hooked up to all kinds of machines and IVs and catheter and all that kind of stuff just laying there. My parents were, yeah, they were disappointed to say the least. The thing that I had asked the officers, which as a mother I think already knew, I said, was there alcohol involved in this accident? And they said yes there was. And I just, I knew that there was but I also knew that I had to ask that question as well. After I got back here I probably didn't call and talk to my parents for about two weeks, three weeks, something like that. I mean they already knew that I had been in the accident and they knew everything. It's just I didn't want to tell them what was happening with me in the military because, you know, I didn't think it was something that they would be proud of. I did not know the military's stance on motorcycles. I did know their stance on obeying state laws and in the state of Pennsylvania a helmet still needs to be worn. He was not wearing a helmet for their protection and he did not have a motorcycle license either. I didn't really think about losing my life during the fact. It was kind of, you know, four or five days after the fact when I realized that, you know, I wasn't wearing a helmet. I didn't have anywhere close to proper equipment on. How do I think the accident has changed Jim? I'm not sure. There are some disciplinary actions that the military has taken. I know that he doesn't like them, but that's good. That's all part of growing up. There are consequences and that's, that is being an adult. When you become an adult, there's privileges, but there's also consequences for bad choices. A lot of people used to have a lot of respect for me and I've noticed that, you know, with my stripes and the things that I did, you know, my actions, my accident, I think I've lost a lot of respect from a lot of my co-workers and my peers and stuff. What got me here was on May 31st, there was going to be a big party at one of my friends' houses. Everybody knew about the whole week before. Everybody was going to be there, basically. So, and I was one of those people and I went out there. I showed up late that night at the party because I'd fallen asleep earlier in the evening at my apartment. But I woke up at about 11 o'clock and got ready and rode my bike out to the party. I got there, there was two kegs at the party and then there was also a cooler, what we called, Jumbo Juice. Over the course of about two hours I had about four beers and then the beer had ran out at that point. Both of the kegs were gone and people were just standing around talking and about four o'clock in the morning rolled around. And one of my friends, he was asking a whole bunch of people that could take him to this bar that he knew people that worked there and that he would be able to get alcohol there because we couldn't get anywhere else at that time. And nobody was really wanting to take him. You know, a lot of people have been drinking all night. And I don't remember how it came about but either he asked me or I told him I would take him. Either way we decided that he would ride on the bike with me to this place to see if his friends were there and we could get some alcohol. So we got on the bike and neither one of us were wearing helmets. I had a helmet there. I asked him if he wanted to wear it. He said no. And if he wasn't going to wear the helmet then I didn't want to wear it because the helmet would be hitting him in the face then. So I just set the helmet off to the side and we left. When we got to the bar there was nobody there. The whole place was closed down so we were just going to go back to the party and we stopped at a gas station that was right next to this bar and Billy ran in, grabbed a pack of cigarettes and then we left the gas station. That's the last thing that I remember. Mr. Dooley, what's your buddy's name that was riding with you, do you know? Bill. Bill who? You don't know his last name? You know what squadron he's in? The phone rang about eight o'clock in the morning and it was a Sunday morning we were getting ready to go to church and Colonel McCabe called and introduced himself and told us that Bill had been in a serious motorcycle accident and we asked him whether we should come and at that point he said well let me double check and see what his prognosis is and at the time we didn't realize that they didn't think he was even going to live through the day. I later found out that as I was rolling along after I fell off the bike I actually hit a sign and got lodged up against the sign and I guess I think that it was my leg, down by my ankle hit the sign because I had a compound fracture and my bone, the bone snapped in half and my ankle was actually sticking out the side of my leg. I also broke my wrist very badly. I had, I still had scars on my head from, I slashed my head open I had to have staples put in my head. You walk into the room and your heart just stops because he was on a ventilator. He had IVs in both of his arms. He had a shunt in his head and it was draining fluid off of his brain into a little container and he wasn't moving. My friend Billy who was on the bike with me had sustained serious head injuries and that was all that they told me and that he hadn't gained consciousness and that stayed the case and he stayed at the city hospital. They said don't talk to him and don't touch him because his brain is swelling from the head injury and any kind of stimulation or if he hears your voices it's going to make, even though he's in a deep coma it's going to make him respond and that will cause his brain to have activity and that will make the pressure in his brain go up. Well imagine being a mother and father and going in there and seeing your son like that and not being able to pick him up and hold him. On the 13th of June, which would have been almost two weeks later to that point nobody told me much other than that he still hadn't gained consciousness and that day my commander and a few chaplains came in and told me that Billy had passed away the day before on June 12th. He basically had a lot of hemorrhaging in his head and died. There's no way to describe the way I feel when I think about the fact that I'll never hear that laugh again I'll never talk to him on the phone I'll never see him again in this life. I mean it hurts every time I think about it and unfortunately I think about it every day and I've learned to cope with some things but nothing is ever going to make it not hurt and it's just, I guess words still can't describe how it makes me feel. I don't think the kids realize because my kids have made the comment, hey it's my life. If I take chances, if I do things, if I get killed, it's my life. What's it hurt? I'm just gone. But what the kids don't realize is the big hole that they leave in the family, in your heart in everyone that's close to them in the Air Force, in their career, in the rest of their lives one bad decision affects everybody it doesn't just affect the person that it happens to I can't think of anything worse as a parent than having to stand and look down at my son's grave that's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. One thing that I just want everybody to realize when they hear my story is that I'm not any different than anybody else I was just a normal airman, went to work every day with everybody else and went out to have fun on the weekends I'll never see him get married, never see him have children I'll never get to be a grandparent to his children and all the things that you want for your children he will never be able to do because of one small mistake they were both physically fit Justin is never going to be able to walk right again and Billy's dead and the Air Force has lost two good young men because of a party, an alcohol and a motorcycle my life has been flipped upside down and now I'm sitting in a confinement facility I haven't been able to walk for the last 10 months and I had to deal with an unbelievable amount of stress and go for the last 10 months my life has just turned into a living hell really but 10 months ago I was just a normal airman and all that took was a few bad decisions and one night and everything was changed If there's anything that I can do to ask people to not get on a motorcycle after you've been drinking or without a helmet if one person would stop somebody from doing that or do it themselves then Bill's memory will be served Every day I think about Billy it's impossible for me not to think about it there's too many reminders I spend a good portion of every day thinking about him and wishing that he was still here