Photo: Marilyn Nieves / E+ / Getty Images
(Des Moines, Iowa) -- A Des Moines man is stranded in Mexico after suffering serious injuries in a motorcycle crash on the Baja Peninsula.
Casey Miller, 39, was riding with a friend to celebrate the New Year when the crash happened Tuesday. According to his friend Calen Lehman, Miller was passing a semi‑truck on a mountain road when he collided with an oncoming vehicle at highway speed.
“We had just come out of a curve going up a mountain. He went to pass the semi, couldn’t see the car, and they made contact at highway speed,” Lehman said. “He was just laying there, blood running down the street. He was wearing a helmet, and I found it 200 to 300 feet from the impact. If he hadn’t been wearing it, there’s no question he would be dead.”
Miller suffered multiple broken bones in one leg, extensive cuts and abrasions, missing and broken teeth, and a severely bitten tongue. Lehman says doctors in Guerrero Negro are unable to fully assess his injuries because the hospital lacks advanced imaging equipment.
“They don’t know exactly what’s wrong because they can’t do full body scans here,” Lehman said.
Lehman also raised concerns about the condition of the hospital and its ability to provide the surgery Miller needs.
“There are boards over the windows, handles falling off the doors. It rained yesterday and almost every room had a leaking ceiling. They don’t have the ability to do the surgery he needs here,” he said.
Miller grew up in Indianola, and friends have started a GoFundMe to raise money for medical care and transportation to an American hospital. Lehman described Miller as “a really good guy who needs to get home.”