Mike Schallmann's Accident

scott heger

Custom-made Troublemaker
Joined
Dec 14, 2003
Messages
1,636
Location
Southern California
Aircraft
SportCopter Bell 206L-1
Total Flight Time
1350
Just the facts first…….

I was camped next to Mike this weekend. We had talked numerous times and enjoyed some stories and laughs. He was in a very good mood every time I saw him. On Saturday afternoon it was hotter than it normally is, and I decided to catch a nap. When I woke up, I was surprised that Mike had already loaded his gyro on his trailer during the hottest part of the day. I kidded him about stopping flying early when there was still gasoline in the tank to fly. Another camper nearby had brought a BMW motorcycle to the event. It was an enduro style motorcycle(good for riding in both dirt and street situations). The motorcycle owner asked me about any restrictions about riding in the area and I said no, just miss the areas with bumps.
He went for a high speed ride around the western part of the lakebed, and returned and asked if I wanted to ride the bike. I said sure, and rode it for a few minutes to cool off. It was still very hot outside. When I returned, Mike came over to my campsite and started looking at the motorcycle and asking about it. Mike asked the owner if he could ride the bike. The owner asked Mike about his riding experience, and Mike gave a detailed explanation of his experience and said he currently had a motorcycle. This satisfied the owner (and me if I was the owner) that he had the skill to ride. The owner then warned Mike about a series of bumps and depressions in the lakebed and where they were. I also told Mike the same thing and pointed them out to him and the areas to avoid. Mike acknowledged these warnings and was shown the controls by the owner and departed. He and I were the last people to ever talk to Mike.
As Mike rode off westbound I began to prep my gyro for another flight, I looked at my watch and it was exactly 6PM. I saw Mike riding the motorcycle at speed, but did not give it much of a thought. It is not unusual to see that kind of riding as no speed limit exist for this area. I had just ridden the same bike around at about 85MPH and it was very easy and stable to ride (fast). I saw Mike was at the far end of the El Mirage lakebed, and was coming towards us at a good speed. My attention was diverted back to my gyro, and a person watching him yelled that a motorcycle had crashed. I looked back to the area where Mike had been riding, and there was nothing but a huge dust cloud.
The motorcycle owner and I jumped on my 4 wheeler and arrived within a minute. The dust was still so thick that we had to slow down in the area. We found Mike on the ground just a few feet from the motorcycle, which was still running on its side. Mike was unconscious and never moved again. He did not suffer at all. I immediately called 911. My cell phone showed 6:03Pm. I gave the location and requested paramedics. This is a very remote area, and I knew the response was going to be extended. People from the fly-in started to arrive, Mike had no pulse and was not breathing. CPR was started, and at least three full teams of people gave him CPR and manual breathing. I made another call to 911 at 6:17PM requesting a life-flight helicopter, but none was available. Paramedics and an ambulance arrived at 6:28PM. Despite everyone’s heroic effort to save Mike, he passed, and nothing more could be done. The bumps he hit were very hard to see at high speed, as they were the same color as the ground around it and smooth. There were no brake marks at all.

Not the facts…..

The path of his ride went straight into the area we both had warned him to avoid. Why he chose to ride in that direction, we will never know. I returned to Mike’s campsite, and there was Brownie, Mike’s little dog starring at me. He loved that dog so much, and Brownie was always following Mike around the campsite. I petted Brownie, and told the dog I was sorry Mike was not coming back to hold him anymore. In that 30 minutes, many people’s lives had changed, and not for the better. I stood there at camp looking at Mike’s gyro on the trailer. “Slightly Dangerous” had quite a history. Mike took such pride in his gyro that he built from scratch, he did more work building that gyro than I could ever imagine trying to do myself. His energy and enthusiasm were contagious. I had watched when he crashed several years ago. Ironically, it was less than 100 yards from where he died. We had a very heated conversation back then about why his accident happened. Mike, nor I , were ones to sugarcoat words. We actually kidded each other about this discussion on Friday. The Saturday night BBQ was muted. Everyone at the fly in was so depressed when the announcement was made.
I always liked to get Mike's verbal sparing going. Mike job was in prison corrections before he retired. He very much dislikes a local Sheriff in Maricopa County (Phoenix) who makes the prisoners’ wear pink underwear and live in hard conditions. I asked a friend of mine to question Mike about this sheriff Friday night, knowing fireworks were going to fly. Mike went off like a Jupiter 5 missile telling my friend what was so wrong with this guy. It was Mike at his finest. Mike had an attitude about life that only comes from a person with many years of experience dealing with the good and the bad in this world. He was not afraid of death, and did not want to become an old invalid. He was 65 years young. Mike never saw many shades of gray; everything was black or white, not very unusual for a law and order kind of guy. I only wish I would have done something different that changed the chain of events that occurred.
I look at the picture of Mike flying at sunset that Edna took, and it says many things. A man that has the will power to take on the challenges of gravity in something he built himself. A man unafraid of peril. Most of all, I see in that photo a proud man living life to the fullest with all the energy he can muster. I will miss Mike very much. I can not imagine the families' pain right now, but any one(family or otherwise), that reads this should know that Mike was a very happy man right to the end.

Scott Heger, Laguna Niguel, Ca N86SH
 
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It's always sad when someone dies, especially at what is supposed to be a group get-together for some good clean fun. But, Scott, neither you nor anyone else who was there should feel as if you played a role in how things turned out, or should feel guilty at all.

If a rotorblade had come apart, or he'd been hit by lightning, I would feel a greater sense of tragedy. But in this one, it's more curiosity over the decisions. For whatever reason, Mike assembled a group of risk factors Saturday that, as it turns out, outweighed his luck. Given the control he had over what happened, I feel the same emotions I would if he'd chosen to move to a tropical island where I'd never see him again.

In his career, Mike spent his every day working within impenetrable walls filled with guys who'd kill him if they could, and many who'd proven they could. I have to wonder if years in an environment like that makes a guy a little numb to risk.

This could have happened just as easily on the streets of Buckeye. Be glad circumstances bought you one last conversation.
 
Scott, thank you for that, a very good post I think for all of us here at the forum.

A clear concise telling of what happened, from someone who was there beside him, knew and was friends with the man.

You have given us all the human dimensions of someone who many of us knew only in the virtual dimension.

I for one would be grateful to have as clear a telling of my life and passing, be it as a celebration of a life that is over, or here, to we who have been saddened by Mike's departing.

He obviously lived life to the full and at max power. Sad as it is for friends and family one cannot help but feel that perhaps it might have been a way that, though too soon, Mike might have approved of. No lingering old age and fading away, but full of life and as always, full throttle.
 
I have never understood why they don't grade those bumps out of the lake like I've seen them do in other states dry lake beds folks use for high speed racing?

I think we should send a letter and ask why this simple solution isn't being used in Ca to prevent what the ranger said is a crash at 11:00 and another one at 1:00 PM almost like clock work during the season?
 
John, the BLM website explains that there are endangered plants growing on the lake bed, and even some hefty fines for visitors who dig them up or use them for firewood.

El Mirage prepares itself every year to be a nearly ideal place for what man wants to do there, with no need for big tracks left by earth-moving equipment. It wouldn't be the same if we made it completely featureless. There are places which are flat for miles. Pick one of those!
 
John, the BLM website explains that there are endangered plants growing on the lake bed, and even some hefty fines for visitors who dig them up or use them for firewood.

El Mirage prepares itself every year to be a nearly ideal place for what man wants to do there, with no need for big tracks left by earth-moving equipment. It wouldn't be the same if we made it completely featureless. There are places which are flat for miles. Pick one of those!

Thanks Paul, I had a feeling it was Plants over people.

OK, couldn't we just get some volunteers to transplant them off to the side?:wave:
 
I have never understood why they don't grade those bumps out of the lake like I've seen them do in other states dry lake beds folks use for high speed racing?

I think we should send a letter and ask why this simple solution isn't being used in Ca to prevent what the ranger said is a crash at 11:00 and another one at 1:00 PM almost like clock work during the season?

That is so true John they should but I have heard some Rangers say they try to keep the lake bed in its natural form as best they can under the circumstances. Does that make since? NO since most people go out there to race their motorcycles all the time. But after a good rain it's like all the lake is smooth again and the traces of all those motorcycle tracks are gone. Maybe those mounds play a part in diverting the water to the middle of the lake.

There will always be hazards in the wild and nature will remind us of that when we play with it. If you take one part away then it can ruin the hole natural state of harmony.

Scott you did every thing possible to warn Mike of the hazards that day. Mike was being Mike and just having fun, he must of forgot the hazards that are out there like many do at El Mirage or any wild and unforgiving place in nature.
 
$hit happens!

$hit happens!

Part of what makes going fast on a motorcycle fun is you have to use your skills to manage the motorcycle and the speed requires more attention.

As a young man I used to come to El Mirage and make big sliding circles on my Triumph at 90+ miles per hour with my feet up because it felt good.

I saw the lumps that Mike hit and in most cases it would get your attention because you would be airborne for a while and there would be some instability that would require control input. It is not a trap waiting for some hapless rider to stray into.

Somehow Mike hit the two lumps just wrong and somehow in his unplanned dismount he got tangled up with the motorcycle. In my opinion he was not doing anything particularly dangerous.

If he had been going faster or slower it might not have been so destabilizing.

Mike said it to Ed and me on Friday, “when your number is up your number is up.”

It is unfortunate that Mike is gone; please don’t try to make it someone’s fault.

Thank you, Vance
 
Vance sorry if it sounded like blame. I'm more solutions oriented and have always felt blame is mostly a wast of time, just seems they could grade it (other states do) to stop the two crashes a day.
 
Scott

A most moving and eloquent description of the man and the events. Death is not the the thing to fear.... not participating in Life is. Clearly Mike did. His Spirit is free.
 
Scott

... Death is not the the thing to fear.... not participating in Life is. Clearly Mike did. His Spirit is free.
WOW!
Yaw Mon!
 
...I had a feeling it was Plants over people...

John, that's not how I see it at all. The El Mirage Dry Lake OHV area is not intended to be a featureless, paved racetrack. It's a unique, natural recreation area people come to see. The irregularities are part of its appeal, especially to the ATV guys.

For a lot less than what most of us spent to come to El Mirage, you can rent some time at a local paved, bland, featureless racetrack, and ride to your heart's content.
 
I have been converted after reading Vance's PM, Paul's, and others post here. Also Vance thinks the rangers are highly exaggerating the numbers.
I've run the mint 400 and it has much more extreme landscape and can certainly understand why the pros would want to keep it that way.

I've only run bikes once on the lake. We would always run the course at slow speeds until we hit the first woopty doos and then just turn around and race at max speed back to the starting point we knew was flat.
 
Beautiful both Scott and Fiveboy. It doesn't matter how Mike left this stage, the point is he will be sadly missed. I for one have no intention of walking into heaven (or hell) with a perfectly preserved body. I hope it's beat up good and well, and at the end of my trip I too can say "Wow, What a ride that was!!!" Like Jake says, "Life itself is terminal, everybody dies from it"

Scott

A most moving and eloquent description of the man and the events. Death is not the the thing to fear.... not participating in Life is. Clearly Mike did. His Spirit is free.
 
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