Couple talks safety after motorcycle crash turns basement into makeshift hospital room

By Hannah Mackenzie

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    ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (WLOS) — May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month, and one local couple is speaking up following a recent increase in motorcycle-related crashes – a few of them fatal.

Frankie Sims and Ashley Connolly were airlifted to a hospital after a car pulled out in front of their motorcycle on April 29.

“It was just the wildest thing,” Connolly said. “I just remember tilting my head over and seeing the white SUV and then I was like, ‘Woah, that’s not supposed to be there.’ Then I was on the pavement. I was like, ‘OK, well here we go, I’m gone. This is it.’”

Sims’ and Connolly’s basement used to be a shrine to Sims’ time spent overseas. Now, it serves as a makeshift hospital room.

“I spent two deployments in combat, and I come back home and almost get taken out in a motorcycle accident,” Sims said. “My kneecap is broken, and my femur went through my pelvis and hip bone, and they pretty much had to reconstruct my whole hip bone with plates and pins.”

Sims has undergone two surgeries. Although Connolly’s injuries weren’t as severe, she, too, will require physical therapy.

“I have tissue damage on my knee, my foot was really badly jammed up, but nothing was broken there,” Connolly said. “I had my femur dislocated, there were cracks on my femur and my pelvis, and I did have some internal bleeding.”

Connolly and Sims credit their helmets for their survival. The driver was cited.

“We got the lucky end of the deal, we really did,” Sims said. “It could have been a lot worse.”

According to the latest data from the North Carolina Department of Transportation, the agency has seen a 14.8% increase in motorcyclist deaths in 2021 from the year prior.

“An 800-pound motorcycle compared to a 4,000-pound car it doesn’t feel good,” Sims said. “I’m thankful that we’re alive and we’re breathing.”

Sims’ and Connolly’s brush with death was only magnified about a week later. On May 8, Sims’ childhood friend Jamil Hawes, 31, was killed in a motorcycle crash on Old Fort Road.

“I grew up with this guy. We were on the same baseball team growing up, youth league baseball team, his parents and my parents grew up together,” Sims said. “He apparently just bought this bike and same incident, a car pulled out in front of him and didn’t have nowhere to go.”

Then, on May 9, Cody-Lee Lewis, 30, a friend of Connolly’s, was killed in another motorcycle crash – this one on New Leicester Highway.

“He was a beautiful soul, he has two beautiful daughters, and my heart just breaks for them,” Connolly said. “All together it was just a lot for one week, because you never think it’s going to be you or someone you know.”

May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month, but these survivors said drivers should stay alert and drive with caution every day.

“It’s a life there on a motorcycle,” Sims said. “It’s really sad knowing that people are wanting to look at cellphones more than paying attention to other people’s lives.”

A benefit ride for Sims and Connolly is planned for 10 a.m. June 3 at Rosman Elementary School.

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