Pomona, California --
Extreme skateboarders who like to hitch a ride behind a moving car on the street can now legally do so -- behind a drag racer!!!
"It was a compromise," said a Pomona City official who voted to open the Pomona Raceway where NHRA "funny" cars and dragsters race to extreme skateboarders as well. "We had to do something to curtail their thirst for a thrill. It was the only thing we could think of that would take them off our streets."
However, few extreme skateboarders have taken up the offer after suffering initial injuries on the dragstrip.
"I don’t care how much safety equipment you wear," said Hector Esparto, an emergency medical technician (EMT) and ambulance driver who waits at the raceway on standby ready to respond to an accident at moment's notice. "There's nothing that’s going to keep your arm in your socket once that light turns green and you're holding on to the airfoil of a V3 dragster."
As one of the first responders, who medically attended to the first few extreme skateboarders that took up the raceway’s offer -- some say challenge -- to hitch a ride behind a dragster, Hector says he thinks the whole thing is a bad idea.
"Several times I had to flag down the dragster with my patients in tow," said Hector as he drove behind the dragsters time after time, chasing them to retrieve the arms of the skateboarders still attached to them.
"Damn!" said Kirk Johnson, 17, an extreme skateboarder who was lucky enough to have his arm recovered by Hector and then later reattached at a hospital.
Kirk was the third extreme skateboarder to take up a position behind a dragster last week.
"I thought I was in for the ride of my life," continued Kirk from his hospital bed. Still recovering from his injury. "But all I saw was smoke."
And when the smoke cleared, Kirk found himself standing all-alone on the quarter-mile long racetrack, while the dragster was nowhere in sight.
"I thought, ‘Dude, where the dragster go?" said Kirk.
Kirk in a state of shock did not realize his arm was missing, taken away by the speeding dragster, until he flipped his board up in the air with his foot several times and could not catch it.
"I thought, ‘WTF?" said Kirk as he looked to his side and saw his arm was gone.
As the doctor and nurse began to unwrap the bandages on Kirk’s arm for the first time since the surgery to reattach it, his parents and fellow extreme skateboarders gather around his hospital bed, eagerly awaiting the results.
One-by-one Kirk moves his fingers as the doctor performs a reflex test, checking for any permanent nerve damage.
Soon Kirk raises up his arm for all to see as in a sign of victory when suddenly a fellow extreme skateboarder points something out on Kirk’s reattached arm.
"Hey, Dude," says Kirk's friend. "When did you get that bitch'n tattoo?"
"What tattoo?" says Kirk as he turns his arm to take a look as everybody in the room moves in to take a closer look as well. "WTF?"
Just then, Hector, the EMT walks into the hospital room.
"Hey, Dude. I see you got your arm reattached and everything," says Hector as everybody turns and stares at him. "Um, listen. Can I have a word with you…alone?"
Copyright © 2008-2011 by Robert W. Armijo. All rights reserved.
