WATCH: Ray McAdam witnessed his friend die in the same spot where another motorcyclist died Monday on Mount Washington.
A roadside memorial now marks the spot where a 29-year-old husband and father of a young child died on Mount Washington Monday.
Police say the motorcyclist failed to negotiate a left-hand turn and went down an embankment dying at the scene.
It’s a story all too familiar to Ray McAdam.
“We were finished lunch and came down the mountain and he went off the road,” McAdam told CHEK News.
Another memorial not far from those red flowers marks the area where Lance Waddell’s ride and life came to an end.
It was Sept. 14, 2003. McAdam was riding in front, his friend Lance Waddell was behind him.
“Going downhill and there’s a bit of a rise and after the rise, there’s a really hard left turn. It was a difficult corner and yeah I remember looking in my mirror and wondering if he was going to make the turn, he didn’t, I could see him go off the road,” said McAdam.
He performed CPR on his friend but it was too late. What had been a perfect day on a windy, hilly mountain road ended in tragedy.
He needed counselling afterwards and only ever returned to the scene once. It was earlier this year.
He says they were both going extremely fast that day.
“Oh yeah, yeah it was (because of speed), absolutely,” he said.
Retired RCMP officer Dave Hay investigated that crash.
“The motorcycle went off the road so fast it actually broke apart and we couldn’t find the rear wheel of the motorcycle,” he said.
“I actually put a rope around my waist and climbed down, tied it off a tree and climbed down a bank and found the rear wheel of the bike up in a tree. The destructive power is almost like an explosion when it hit it was going so fast. You don’t do that at 60 km/hr.”
Police have not said if speed is to blame in the most recent crash but Ray McAdam knows what he did that day 15 years ago and knows the road itself draws motorcyclists for the thrill of the ride.
He just urges them to do it more carefully.
Dean Stoltz
