‘Grateful to be alive’
Beacon Falls couple in a motorcycle accident after nearly hitting bear
WASHINGTON — Around noon Saturday, Lisa and Bob Zaccagnini decided to ride on a Harley-Davidson to bring lunch to their daughter, who works at Gunn Memorial Library in Washington..
But on the way, the Beacon Falls couple encountered an unexpected obstacle about a mile from the library: a small bear on Roxbury Road.
After her husband swerved to avoid the bear, Lisa Zaccagnini said she ended up on the ground with bad bruises on both her legs.
“It’s going to take a while to get back to normal,” Lisa Zaccagnini, 56, said in a phone interview Monday with Hearst Connecticut Media. “I’m just very grateful to be alive and home.”
Zaccagnini has been riding on the back of her husband’s motorcycle for years — always as a passenger.
On Saturday, she said they took a different route than usual to the library “just to be different, for a change of scenery.”
They were about a mile from the library when they saw another motorcycle coming up the hill from where they were headed.
“He was honking his bike horn,” Zaccagnini said.
“We didn’t know why he was honking and right as we were approaching the curve, the bear was coming onto the road,” Zaccagnini said. “Your natural instinct is not to hit the animal.”
She said it appeared to be a baby bear, based on its size.
“My husband knew we weren’t going to avoid hitting the bear and we couldn’t cross over to the other side to swerve around it,” she said. “So, instead of holding on and just going down with the bike, he let the bike go from under him.”
Then they both rolled on the ground. While she said her husband “popped right back up,” she didn’t.
“I knew I was cut up pretty bad, so I just lay very still,” she said. “There were cars coming both ways so there were people already there behind us when we were approaching the bear.”
Among those who showed up at the scene included “a retired nurse (and) an out-of-state emergency medical technician that just happened to be on that road,” she said.
“They all helped me,” she said, adding they
cut a backpack she was wearing off her body. “Everything was all torn.”
The bear was gone by the time first responders arrived, she said.
While her husband declined medical treatment, Zaccagnini was flown to Hartford Hospital where she said a series of tests were done.
“My right leg, my knee is very swollen. My foot is quite injured but I was able to walk enough that they would let me go home,” she said.
She said this was the first time she and her husband, 57, who has been riding motorcycles for years, have been involved in an accident.
Will Healey, a spokesman for the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said motorists should taken precautions in case of encountering a bear in the road, “particularly in rural parts of the state where there is more suitable wildlife habitat, to reduce speed, particularly in the early morning, or at dusk and nighttime, when visibility is worse. This is particularly important on windy roads where visibility could be obstructed.”
He added during the fall season, bear activity increases as they seek to stock up on food before winter, “so it’s extra important for motorists to be mindful of wildlife activity on or near roadways, be on the lookout, and reduce speed accordingly.”
Zaccagnini planned to contact her doctor on Monday and hopes to be more mobile by the end of the week.
However, she doesn’t plan to ride a motorcycle again.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “It’s not worth it.”