SEQUIM — Mayor Walt Schubert has returned home after being treated at a Seattle hospital for injuries sustained in a motorcycle crash earlier this month.
He’s wearing a neck brace and walks, with difficulty, using a walker, but he says his prognosis is excellent.
He also says that his lifetime enthusiasm for motorcycle riding is a thing of the past.
“If I’m fortunate enough to fully recover from this — and I think I will be — I’d be crazy to ride again,” said Schubert, 64.
He has months of healing ahead of him, time when involvement in his property management business and his public affairs activities must take a back seat to physical limitations.
But in a wide-ranging interview Tuesday, Schubert was both optimistic and reflective — confident of his prospects and cognizant of promises he made, to himself and others, when he beat thyroid cancer decades ago.
Riding on West End
On March 13, Schubert and a friend were riding their motorcycles on state Highway 112 between Joyce and Seiku.
While rounding a sharp turn, Schubert said he glanced away for a second. When he looked back at the road, he realized he wasn’t going to make the curve.
Rather than lay the 2004 Harley-Davidson motorcycle down and skid, he decided to let the bike drift off the road to the shallow bank beside it, thinking he could ride it out.
The bike hit a stump, however, throwing him in the air — and while he was up there the 800-pound Harley hit him.
Schubert was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he underwent surgery on his pelvis. He also has fractures in his neck vertebrae, but escaped the accident without paralysis.
“I don’t want people to worry about me,” he said. “I’m going to be OK. I’m recovering.
“This could’ve been a huge disaster.”