Charlie,
Thanks for the story. It sounds like your man died of natural causes.....natural to the course of his life. I am glad the good guys came out ahead on that one.
We had a local yute who owned a crotch rocket type of motorcycle. It was faster than he could handle in most cases. The license plate was mounted above the rear wheel where it was legal, but not really readable when the bike was moving faster than the surrounding traffic. The kid had sense enough to wear a helmet, not out of a sense of self preservation, but as a means to prevent any pursuing officer from identifying him after a chase. We had several officers chase him numerous times.....city Marshal, county Sheriff, Highway Patrol. He was just too fast and caused the officers and their supervisors to terminate the pursuits before any civilian casualties could be caused. He sped, they chased, they got called off. All of the local guys knew the bike, they knew where he lived, they knew his parents, and the had numerous conversations with his family trying to curtail his penchants for high speed pursuits. One day, we were all sitting around the firehouse listening to the SO radio channel (ours as well) when we heard the start of a pursuit. Within seconds we heard the bike tearing past the station and through town on our 5 lane highway. He was well over a 100 in our 45mph city with one of our county's finest right behind him. Our deputy had a fairly new Tahoe with the biggest V-8 that GM offered and he was keeping pretty close to the bike. They turned up a larger highway and headed towards the big city and they really got rolling. The Tahoe would only go about 123 so the deputy cut off his lights and was still following. The bike turned onto a somewhat large, but still rural highway and headed out of town again, the deputy stayed with him. We were all just waiting to hear the LT or CAPT cut it off, but only the deputy was on the radio calling out positions. Less than a minute later the deputy called the pursuit terminated and asked for the FD, EMS and to put Air Life in route. We all knew that something bad had happened. We loaded four trucks with men and headed that way even before the dispatcher could get it out on the radio. We did not know what happened, but figured that it probably was going to be ugly. A short drive later,we arrived.
Our deputy had been topped out in his Tahoe, but was still really on top of the bike. He had lost sight of the bike as it went over a small hill. As the deputy topped the hill, he could only see smoke and knew that something had gone terribly wrong and locked up the brakes to avoid being part of the casualties. He slid within inches of hitting the now stopped bike.
As we topped the hill, we saw the Tahoe, a gooseneck trailer carrying a large Bobcat and an assortment of tools being towed by a crew cab 4x4 pickup truck. The truck and trailer had been turning left across the highway when the bike hit the trailer's tandem axles at over 100 mph. There was not much left of the rider, but his head was still in the helmet. We checked with the truck's occupants and they were 100% OK, but had no idea what happened, we checked on the deputy and he was 100% OK, but shaken by the prospect of what could have been his fate if he had not been on top of what was transpiring. We went to check on the MC rider, and decided that there was nothing that we could do. We cancelled EMS and Air life and asked for the JP.
We spent the next 4 hours with the Highway Patrol, the Sheriff's investigators, and the JP trying to get everything photographed and cleaned up. About 30 minutes after the initial wreck, the young man's parents and family starting showing up at the wreck. The were very boisterous and aggressive towards the LE contingent, they wanted to know how their beloved son deserved this fate - The JP who was called to pronounce the man DRT had to intervene with the family. His words have stuck with me and were even used a in movie about western lawmen. He told the family that their son had died a natural death, natural to the course of his life. The family did not appreciate those words and eventually got nasty enough to be escorted away from the scene.
I guess that some people and maybe even some families never learn.
Thanks to all of the 1st responders who act to help all of us every day, regardless of uniform or agency, may the new year be safe and may you return home safely at the end of your shift/day.
. Remember we are starting the Roaring 20's all over again. 
Loose lips, and all that.
