Survivor of dramatic motorcycle crash said it seemed familiar

A 40-year-old woman who flipped over and fell three stories into Lake Washington when her motorcycle hit a curb at an offramp on the Highway 520 bridge left Harborview Medical Center Friday with injuries no greater than cuts and bruises.

Reshel Reid of Redmond, a mother of five, said that two weeks ago she had had a vivid dream in which a bike hit an offramp, and somebody was falling off a freeway exit but survived by swimming to floating driftwood.

That's why, she said, she didn't panic as she swam to Marsh Island near the University of Washington.

"I've been through it. It was déjà vu," Reid said at a news conference Friday.

But her dream didn't include getting a ticket from the State Patrol for "speed too fast for conditions."

Reid said she was going 20 miles an hour on her Suzuki DRZ 400 SuperMoto bike as she was getting off at the Lake Washington Boulevard exit shortly before 11 a.m. Thursday.

She was on her way to do a story for a Web site devoted to female motorcycle riders.

Reid said that perhaps she hit a white painted stripe on the offramp. "It was damp outside," she said, and maybe that caused her bike to skid.

But Kelly Spangler, spokeswoman for the State Patrol, said she went to the scene about half an hour after the accident. "It was bone-dry," Spangler said.

Spangler said there were no witnesses.

Nonetheless, Reid counts herself lucky. When she went into the water, she was able to slip off her backpack that contained 15 to 20 pounds of coins she had planned to cash in.

Reid, whose bike is now in storage, said she hopes to be able to retrieve the backpack, a camera, tape recorder and cellphone that went to the bottom.

She first rode motorcycles at age 15, she said, but hadn't been on a bike for 25 years until this past July.

On the wominX.net Web site, Reid wrote about taking up motorcycles again:

"Such a time is this, just knowing, and having the anticipation of venturing out, exploring, journeying, touring countrysides, be on some wild trek, is exciting, and will play out its part in my life! I know now that it was no accident, that I was reintroduced to motorcycles. It is just the right turn into the rest of my life."

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or

elacitis@seattletimes.com