SGT. JOHN CARKEET IV
U.S. Army Japan
Shizuoka, Japan
CAMP ZAMA, Japan — The man scanned the trail of red liquid streaming along the roadside.
“At first I thought it was transmission fluid, but I soon realized it was blood pouring from my friend’s body,” he said.
That was the scene that laid before John D. Trent, a Defense Commissary Agency contractor and motorcycle enthusiast. The blue, sunlit sky that blanketed Shizuoka prefecture, Japan, on the afternoon of July 3, 2016, stood in stark contrast with the mangled man moaning in agony.
“What started as a dream ride turned into a nightmare,” Trent said. “In my 35 years of riding motorcycles in Japan, I had never seen anything like this.”
Trent and his close friend, Makoto Tanabe, joined five fellow motorcyclists from the Hard n’ Fast international riding club for a leisurely ride along Shizuoka prefecture’s picturesque countryside. After several hours traversing through city streets and rural roads, the seven-man group started their trek back to their original meeting location at Sagamihara.
“We were riding home in a standard staggered formation,” said Trent, a former U.S. Air Force dependent and U.S. Army veteran who has called Japan home since 1978. “Makoto was riding at a close but safe distance to my right. He began to turn as the road banked toward a bridge. That’s when tragedy struck.”
A bridge too close
Trent recalled Tanabe’s 2013 Harley Davidson rolling across a patch of gravel. The tires slipped as they lost contact with the paved surface. Tanabe, a seasoned rider, regained partial control before the road gave way to a small bridge.
“Makoto’s decades of experience riding bikes likely prevented a head-on collision with the bridge’s side wall,” Trent said. “He instead bounced off the wall from his left side. It looked to me that his first contact the bridge left him unscathed, but the second hit proved near fatal.”
After his second bounce off the bridge’s wall, Tanabe managed a controlled stop before he and his bike collapsed on top of each other. Trent stood by his friend’s side less than a minute later.
“I pulled his bike off him only see that his left foot was nearly severed from just above the ankle,” Trent said, recalling the ghastly scene. “The impact from the second hit was so great that the sole of his left riding boot had blown clean off.”
Cause and effect
Trent’s initial (and later confirmed) conclusion as to the cause of the horrific sight stemmed from the bike’s foot pegs.
“His Harley has forward controls, so the foot pegs protrude outward and closer toward the front of the engine,” Trent said. “The peg pinned his foot between the bridge’s wall and the bike’s engine, and the weight of these objects combined with the speed of the collision generated almost enough pressure to cut through skin and bone. His heavy riding boot likely prevented his foot from completely sheering off at the ankle.”
Trent quickly overcame the initial shock and took the first crucial step that saved his friend’s life.
“Blood was gushing out of his leg at an alarming rate,” Trent said. “I knew he had minutes to live while I had seconds to act.”
Trent began to take off his belt to use it as a tourniquet when an idea rooted from his days at Army basic training took hold.
“I remembered that I had a bungee cord in my bike’s storage compartment,” Trent said. “Applying my Army first-aid training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, I tied it tight around his ankle, and the bleeding fell to a trickle.”
After checking his handiwork, Trent used his Bluetooth device connected to his helmet to call 119.
“First responders arrived at the scene within 10 minutes,” Trent said. “Makoto was fully conscious during that time. The other riders and I did what we could to alleviate his pain.”
The injured rider was loaded onto a medical helicopter and flown to a nearby hospital in Shizuoka. Trent’s follow-up visits brought some relief knowing his friend was in stable condition with his foot firmly reattached to his ankle.
“He’ll be in the hospital for a while,” Trent said. “However, I have no doubt we will ride again.”
Of men and motorcycles
Trent’s passion for motorcycles began at age 7 when he first took hold of the handlebars of his brother’s 2.5-horsepower mini-bike. Although Trent has ridden dozens of more powerful models for tens of thousands of hours in the 51 years since, he feels every motorcycle owner should continually strive to be a better, safer rider.
“I believe motorcycle riding is inherently more dangerous than driving a car,” said Trent, a proud owner of a Harley XL1200V Model 72. “The tragedy that nearly took Makoto’s life could have happened to any one of us riding that day. There’s simply no substitute for proper training and preparedness.”
Trent and his fellow Hard n’ Fast riders plan to turn their words into action.
“We are working with local hospitals and other riding clubs to develop a first-aid course designed to treat wounds commonly caused by motorcycle accidents,” Trent said. “Makoto was lucky in the sense that he suffered an injury that I knew how to treat. If he had broken a bone, punctured a lung or lost consciousness, I can’t say for certain that I would have known what to do.”
Despite the hazards, Trent encourages every motorcycle enthusiast protected under the Status of Forces Agreement between Japan and the United States to ride together in the Land of the Rising Sun.
“Japan is one of the safer Asian countries to ride,” Trent said. “Drivers here are more aware of riders, and the slower speed limits mitigate high-speed collisions.”
Trent also feels that riding can forge friendships that break cultural barriers and build international camaraderie.
“Service members should join local riding clubs,” Trent advised. “It’s a great way to explore Japan, experience its culture and interact with its people.”