SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) – May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month, and for good reason. In Georgia, nearly 200 bikers are killed in traffic crashes each year.

Recently, News 3 caught up with an army veteran and his wife still dealing with the trauma of a crash that nearly killed them.

In March 2021, Adam and Amanda Taylor were just 25 miles from home when their lives changed forever.

“As soon as we hit, I hit his helmet and then I hit the windshield. I blacked out for maybe a few minutes, and then I remember being thrown from the bike and hitting the pavement,” says Amanda Taylor.

According to the Hinesville couple, a driver made a left-hand turn in front of their motorcycle where Highway 119 meets Interstate 16. Amanda recalls hearing the voice of her best friend who’d been riding behind them.

“I remember that when I woke up, she begged me to wake up… and I was OK with letting go,” she says through tears.

The Taylors’ injuries were severe… broken bones, missing teeth, skin ripped away.

Two years later, they’re still living with the pain. Adam explains that now his “pelvis is unstable and it pops like a knee cap. When that happens it feels like I’m being kicked in the crotch.”

Adam now walks with a cane.

Amanda says she suffers from PTSD behind the wheel.

“I have to pull over and like breathe. I’ve seen motorcycle wrecks and like, it triggers.”

An outdoor adventurer at heart, Adam can no longer enjoy the things he’s spent his whole life doing. That includes serving as an infantryman and paratrooper in the Army.

He says “it’s led to a lot of home stress and…a lot of self-isolation.”

The Taylor’s Atlanta-based attorney Ted Spaulding says it has also caused them financial strain.

“He loses his career not from going fighting for us, but from a motorcycle wreck that could have been easily avoided,” Spaulding says while sitting at the Taylors’ dining room table. He believes their personal injury case is strong and that the other driver was at fault, perhaps because they were distracted.

This Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month he warns everyone to “just slow down in life and take a moment, and pay attention to what you’re doing because look what can happen.”

According to the Georgia Motorcycle Safety Program, 53 percent of these kinds of accidents happen when someone turns left in front of an oncoming motorcycle. For that reason, they say you need to be extra cautious at intersections.