Bill Luce

[Bill Boehme]

A message was posted on the WoW forum that well known professional woodturner Bill Luce has been seriously injured. Here is the initial message from his wife, Monica about the accident:

3 am Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Dear family,
I hate to do this by email but wanted to give you all the information that I have right now.
Yesterday afternoon Bill had a serious motorcycle accident on a ride up Hood Canal. They airlifted him to Harborview. I don't know the details of the accident because I haven't spoken to the local police yet.
He has a badly broken pelvis and will have surgery first thing in the morning.
He has a broken C6 vertebrae and they will probably do surgery to fuse it but they are still evaluating. He has moved his fingers and twitched his feet. The nurse just told me that the ortho docs said they will wait until after the pelvis surgery to do an MRI on his neck. His left leg is in traction which is problematic for the MRI.
He is still pretty sedated and so I haven't spoken to him yet. More accurately, he hasn't spoken yet. They have him on a respirator.
He has a "small subarachnoid hemorrhage" and they have done a couple of CT scans to monitor it.
His vitals have been fairly stable throughout. They are taking very good care of him. At this point we are just waiting to see how things go and how he will respond as the sedation wears off
Monica​

If you wish to follow reports on his progress, you can go to Caring Bridge to stay abreast on his condition and also to leave messages. You can log on using your Facebook account if you wish.

 

[hockenbery]

A very serious accident.
We are are hoping for Bill to have a complete recovery.

 

[Owen Lowe]

 

[John Torchick]

Bill, thanks for the information. Praying for a speedy and complete recover for our fellow woodturner.

 

[Mark Lindquist]

Best wishes for a speedy recovery for Bill. Very difficult when these things happen. Takes a lot of time to get through it.
Good luck Bill.
Mark

 

[Jamie Straw]

[Note: I see now, via Caring Bridge, that he is at a regional hospital now. Did not realize his initial accident was in mid-September] A very serious accident indeed. I do not know Bill, but will keep him in my thoughts. He is being treated in an excellent Level I trauma center with excellent medical staff. They did a commendable job for me, twice, with diagnostics and surgeries. Having the team there as he arrived, instead of having to wait for assembly, would have increased his chances for success. According to our local medics, that is a major reason for going to Harborview when critically injured. Wishing him the best.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Bill Luce is a well known professional woodturner. He demonstrated at an AAW symposium a few years ago. He is also a member of this forum, but hasn't posted in a number of years,

 

[Mark Lindquist]

Does anyone know how Bill Luce is doing? It's been a long time and haven't heard a thing. I tried calling at one point after the accident but no way possible for him to take a call.

 

[Bill Boehme]

For a long time I was getting emails from CaringBridge where Monica was posting updates almost daily. Over the many months since late last summer he was moved to two or three different hospitals and one or two skilled nursing facilities to receive physical and speech therapy. If my memory is correct I think that he is home now, but still in need of therapy. He might possibly be receiving home health care. Monica has also written a number of times about the stress of dealing with their insurance company. During this time Monica realized that their home would be too difficult to update to make it handicap friendly so she moved to a more suitable location that was also closer to medical facilities that he might need. Here is a link to CaringBridge:
https://www.caringbridge.org/signin

You can sign in with your email address and a password or with Facebook or Google accounts if you have an account on either of those. Once you set up an account, you can find the postings about Bill Luce at: https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/billluce

It appears that the most recent journal entry was on June 2. My impression from what I've read is that he may not be able to do any lathe work again.

 

[Mark Lindquist]

Thanks Bill. So tragic. Bill was such an amazing turner. Very sad.
Appreciate the update.

 

[John Torchick]

Sorry to hear that Bill might not be able to turn again. Sad. Maybe his recovery would be such that he could teach others what he has learned over the years.
Bill, thanks for the update on Bill.

 

[Emiliano Achaval]

Bill will be in my prayers. I just inherited a nice motorcycle. After reading this I'm going to sell it. Haven't ride one in over 30 years... I can't even transfer the darn thing to my name, you need insurance to get the safety check, and you need a motorcicle license to get insurance. I have no license... My brain says ride it!! Bureaucracy and age says no...

 

[Bill Boehme]

A friend many years ago had who knows how many wrecks on his motorcycle ... and according to him it was always the other person's fault. He overlooked his bad habits like tailgating and passing between vehicles on the freeway. most of his injuries were road rash, but he broke bones at least twice ... maybe more times. I hope that he quit riding motorcycles after the last wreck that I know about. he rammed a car from behind and then went over the car and got run over. He spent a while in the hospital after that one. Of course he blamed the driver in the car for stopping too fast.

 

[Donna Banfield]

It was age 10 or 11 when I recognized motorcycles in my urban area. I was 14 when the Kawasaki dealer moved into the neighborhood. I was in love. I decided that I was going to buy a motorcycle when I got my license at 16. My father had other ideas. I needed a parent to sign for it? It was sort of like 'over my dead body' as the discussion went. We had issues all his life. He died in the middle of my senior year of high school. I bought my motorcycle when I reached 18. I enjoyed that bike for the freedom it gave me, for the bad a$$ I thought I was. I had that bike for about 18 months. Sold it. When I moved to NH from Michigan, I didn't renew my motorcycle license. I realized I didn't need to prove anything anymore.

I'm sorry that Bill may never be able to turn again. His forms were perfection in bowl turning. Accidents can happen on a motorcycle, in a car, crossing the street, swimming in your favorite pond. I wish him well, to him and his family. Maybe he can find another outlet for the tremendous talent he has.

 

[john lucas]

Well I have ridden motorcycles my whole life. Raced a while when I was younger. I always assumed the guy in the car next to me was out to kill me and I rode constantly aware of that danger and it paid off. Well almost. After I met my now wife I finally convinced her to go for a ride. I mean we live out in the country, no traffic, a beautiful day. We hadn't gotten 5 miles and the rear wheel came off the bike at 55 mph. Fortunately we were on a 4 lane road with no cars around. The Horizontally opposed engine of the BMW kept the bike from crushing our legs but we rolled and rolled and rolled. Neither of us was hurt bad although cleaning our wounds when we got home (the hospital didn't touch them) was extremely painful. The insurance company offered me more for the bike than it was worth and knew she would never ride it and wouldn't like it if I did so I let it go. She did marry me later, must be something wrong with her. I miss the bike every day but in all honestly the roads are too dangerous now. I constantly see people swerving across the lines because they are on their damn phones. I see evidence of accidents on perfectly straight roads where there should never be a problem. There are an awful lot of drunk drivers out there. I don't care how good you are at bike handling, one of these idiots will kill you.
I really miss seeing Bill's pieces. They were just flat out beautiful. Not flash, not showy, just beautiful.

 

[John Torchick]

I had a 100 cc. Parilla bike in my teen years- early 60s. It took 19 years for the scars to go away. I was barely moving when the bike decided to lay down. I did enjoy it and had to sell it when we moved to Queens, NY. In our county of eastern Ohio, none of us guys had a license or license for the bikes. Law officers ignored this as long as we stayed off the main roads and didn't cause any trouble. Back roads were more fun, anyway.

 

[Brian McInturff]

I rode a Harley for a number of years. Got rid of it in 2009 due to back issues. Back issues have been good now since 2012. I've thought about getting another but as John said above, too many people on those dang phones. I'm afraid I wouldn't survive owning another one!