Lovell nurse comes to aid of toppled cyclist

Nikole Hansen of Basin fell off a motorcycle going 70 miles per hour with no helmet and lived to tell the tale.

Hansen was riding on the back of her boyfriend Robert Bond’s bike to a rally in Red Lodge on July 18. About 10 miles out of Bridger, Hansen noticed she wasn’t feeling well. She hadn’t eaten, and she wasn’t very well hydrated. She reached up to tap Bond twice, the signal for “stop,” and the next thing she knew, she was looking up from the pavement. 

Hansen didn’t even touch Bond when she toppled, and he travelled about half a mile up the road before looking back to check his tire, which he thought might have an issue, to find Hansen still rolling from the fall. Bond hurried back to check on her, and luckily, a nurse from Lovell was driving past and pulled over.

“It was amazing knowing someone that close was there to help,” Hansen said. 

Emergency responders started stitching her up on the way to Intermountain St. Vincent Regional Hospital. Hansen spent four nights and five days at the hospital in Billings. Doctors theorized she had suffered from a heat stroke, which caused her to topple off the bike. It was 104 degrees that day, and she had been dressed all in black -- though her fall left her brand new shirt ripped to shreds. They also told her the only conceivable reason her injuries weren’t more extensive was the fact that her body was limp when she fell.

While Hansen miraculously suffered no broken bones, she had major road rash up her right arm and leg -- the equivalent of a Stage II burn, she was told, some damage to her pinky finger and a concussion. On her head alone, Hansen had 21 stitches and 13 staples. She estimated she lost 75% of her hair in the accident, “a $75,000 haircut.”

A cut along the top of her forehead formed a wound that Hansen thought spelled, “Love.” It’s how she knows a guardian angel was watching out for her. When she was released from the hospital, she went to the Lovell cemetery and thanked her brother, Richard Hansen, who passed away in 2024, for looking out for her.

Thousands of rocks were embedded in Hansen’s wounds, and she sustained a cut travelling down into her ear. Another miracle was that when Hansen’s wound care nurse came to care for her at North Big Horn Hospital, Hansen recognized her as the nurse that had stopped to help her on the side of the road, Kirsten Akin. Hansen was excited to tell her, “Thank you for saving my life.”

Hansen is new to “backpacking,” riding along with Bond for about nine months now. 

“He has shown me so many new things. …  Meeting him has really opened up my life,” Hansen said. 

After the accident, she is firm that she will never ride without a helmet again, especially after promising her 14-year-old daughter. She was grateful for the people who helped her care for her injuries and looked out for her after the accident, including Akin; her cousin Janel Thatch, who served as another wound care nurse for her at the hospital; Bond; her parents Kathi George of Joliet, Montana, and Richard Hansen of Greybull.

Three weeks later, she was on the road to Sturgis for her first ever concert with Bond. They took a truck most of the way, then rode the bike into town. She told her story about five times to various bikers, the cautionary tale being to “always wear your helmet.”

“It will never happen again,” she swore.

She and Bond made it to the front row for their concert, and while the vibrations from the sound killed her foot, Hansen thought it was worth it. Her motto is, “Every scar is just a story I survived.”