Former Rep. Allen West says that his recovery from a catastrophic motorcycle accident earlier this year contains a lesson about individual physical strength in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Just a couple of months ago, I was in a catastrophic motorcycle accident,” West, who was a House member from Florida between 2011 and 2013 and is now the new chairman of the Texas Republican Party, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “I should not be here because no one survives, a motorcycle accident 75 miles per hour on an interstate highway.”
In late May, the retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and outspoken conservative suffered a concussion and fractured several bones due to the accident. According to a police report, a vehicle on Interstate 35 north of Waco, Texas, unsafely changed lanes in front of two motorcyclists — the one in front, West, tried to brake, and the one in the back crashed into the front motorcyclist. Both were taken to a Waco hospital and were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
“One of the things that the doctor said was my level of fitness, without a doubt, saved my life,” West said.
That lesson is applicable to the general public in light of the coronavirus pandemic, he argued.
“People have to take an individual responsibility for their fitness and for their own health and not make, not have government believe that it’s their responsibility to protect our health,” West said. “So, if there’s a message that we can send from COVID-19, it’s to make sure that we are doing the right things for ourselves, to protect ourselves.”
West, who moved from Florida to Texas in 2015, won the party chairmanship earlier this month and unseated incumbent Chairman James Dickey. During the party’s state convention, West appeared to take issue with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order mandating mask use in counties with more than 20 cases, saying that he was against “tyranny that we see in the great state of Texas, where we have executive orders and mandates, people telling us what we can and cannot do, who is essential, who is not essential.”
He reiterated his opposition to politicians deciding which industries can operate to the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
“There are vulnerable demographics out there. We have to take the precautions for them. But a concern that I have is that no elected official has the enumerated power to be able to say who or what is essential, not just here in Texas but anywhere across the United States of America,” West said. “That’s a message that we can learn from this COVID-19 issue.”
