Another Unlikely Fatality

[Zekester]

Mike's Famous employee dies from motorcycle accident injuries

DAMIAN GILETTO, The News Journal Posted Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 10:29 am

An employee of a motorcycle store, who was injured while transporting a motorcycle, has died from his injuries, according to Cpl. Jeffrey Whitmarsh of the Delaware State Police.

Yuriy Kovalchuk, 45, of Newark was trying to move a motorcycle into a secure area of Mike's Famous Harley-Davidson Sunday night when he lost control of the bike, went down an embankment and through a chain-link fence before crashing into a concrete culvert that runs parallel to I-295, Whitmarsh said.

Kovalchuk, an employee who provided security for the store, was not wearing a helmet during the accident, which resulted in severe head trauma as well as a collapsed lung, Whitmarsh said.

The crash remains under investigation.
See complete coverage Wednesday in The News Journal or at www.delawareonline.com

Contact Damian Giletto at 324-2883 or dgiletto@delawareonline.com

[TintinStrom]

That's unfortunate.

Natural selection, but definitely unfortunate anytime a rider loses his/her life.

[Jeffro115]

Crashes can happen anywhere. I've crashed in my own driveway twice. Not counting the stupid times that I just dropped the bike.

[Michael_H]

yea it seems that if you ever, ever even once ride your bike for even 1 inch with out a helmet you serious risk getting killed. and I have riden my bikes about 10 times I think with out a helmet, all just to check out things I just adjusted or fixed and only went like down the street or down the driveway, but Im seriously going to try and never ride an inch with out my helmet on, it could be my last ride.

[DaveT]

Here in the US there was a BMW Motorrad dealership owner killed about 18 months ago in his own parking lot. He was just moving a bike across his lot during the morning set-up that most dealers go through. Shirtsleeve got caught in the throttle-works, wobbled and went down at walking speed, head directly impacted edge of low curb of a walkway. Dead at the scene. That was the day, actually, that I decided never to touch a running bike again without a helmet. I like riding, and the rest of my short life, too much to toss it that way.

[rjsurfer]

A good friend and co-worker loved his Harley and riding, he always spent a lot of time at this biker bar just up the hill from his house, good natured evening fun.

Well one night he came out of the joint and found his bike on it's side, some low life knocked it over and took off, no problem, he's a strong dude and got it back up on his own, checked it out and everything was cool. So he got on the bike and carefully placed his helmet on the rear mirror and COASTED down the hill to his house, like he did a hundred times before, well as he picked up speed & heading toward his house he grabbed some front brake and the lever came off in his hand. Needless to say his rear brake did nada since it's a steep incline towards his house, wound up hitting his own mailbox head first....when I went to see him at the hospital I didn't recognize him ! his head was the size of a basketball.

Gave me some food for thought.....Now I just started riding and will never forget that. I swear I put my helmet on before I push my bike out the storeroom.

Lesson learned.

Ron W.

[mike54]

I had a friend in HS who died when he was coasting his bike down the driveway. Getting ready to take the dirtbikes out with his dad and was loading them up on the trailer. Jumped on the bike side saddle to coast it down to the bottom of the driveway and went over backwards. Smacked his head on the concrete and that was it.

[Steve G.]

Very unfortunate story. Sad to say, but Charles Darwin's theories do alot to explain sad stories like this.
Ciao, Steve