Chris Bornitz wasn’t planning on hitting the highway on his Harley on the night of July 29. He also didn’t plan on hitting the ditch after a deer ran out in front of him.
That deer, of course, forced Bornitz to swerve and lay down his bike on a highway between Storden and Walnut Grove; once he entered the ditch, he went through the handle bars and his right knee hit the gas tank.
“We’re guessing my foot drug underneath, because I laid it down on the right side — my foot drug backwards and tore everything … I had Dudes on, I wasn’t even planning on riding that day, it was just random,” he said. “Once I hit the grass, the bike momentum slowed down — I had an imprint of the headlight on my side.”
Bornitz laid, out cold, in a dark ditch near a corn field for over an hour before he was discovered by some kids driving by.
“The only reason they saw me was because I have under-glow lights on my bike, and they were on,” he said. “I remember the crash, I remember laying the bike down, but that’s all.”
Bornitz was not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash. He said he’s not against helmets as a practice and was told the fact that he wasn’t wearing one probably saved his life.
“A week later, I asked my ER doctor if I had a helmet on, would it have helped? He goes,’ ‘You would’ve been dead,’” Bornitz said. “The weight — how severe my C1 fracture was — it would’ve snapped my neck.”