Injured motorcyclist & rescuer continue friendship one year later

A motorcyclist traveling on an access road on Interstate Highway 35 made a dangerous turn that could have cost him his life. Thankfully a quick thinking Good Samaritan saw what happened and jumped into action. 

On Friday the motorcyclist and his hero, who still keep in contact to this day, got together again to tell their story to FOX 7.

It's been almost a year since Robert Cunningham was in a life changing motorcycle crash.

"I'm so grateful for Billy if he hadn't of turned around I wouldn't be here," Cunningham says.

Billy is Billy Bowden and Cunningham is remembering the day the two met. It wasn't how you'd think two life long friend would have met.

In 2016, Cunningham was heading southbound on an access road towards San Marcos when he lost control of his motorcycle and ended up in a ditch. He says he doesn't remember much from the crash.

"Everybody has told me that where I was found that even anybody driving on the access road wouldn't have seen me because the grass was tall enough and it covered me up," Cunningham says.

But as luck would have it, just as Cunningham veered off the road Bowden spotted him.

"Yeah just out of the corner of my eye I caught something on the service road for a brief second. A puff of dust and he went off the road into a ditch," Bowden says.

Bowden eventually found Cunningham.

"I yelled for him are you in here? And he started moaning and I said keep talking to me and he was in very poor shape," Bowden says.

Cunningham was indeed in bad shape. "I opened up a head wound from the other side of my head all the way over to other side. And I broke my neck and my upper back, I have a plate on my skull."

Bowden says he doesn't consider himself a hero but instead feels that it was a higher power that put him in the right place at the right time.

"I think God put me in that place at that time on that 35 south to help him out I really do because when it happened I looked around and there were no cars around and this is around noon no traffic nobody else saw this but me," Bowden says.

A year later Cunningham says he still struggles with day to day tasks but he is getting better. And while he may sometimes forget where things are he says he'll never forget the help he received from Bowden.

"It humbles me and I'm really really grateful for people that take the time to come back...when they seen something and the first responder being called right away and take me out of there," Cunningham says.

Cunningham his view on life has also changed. "I guess you can go by the old saying I didn't stop and smell the roses and I do now."

Cunningham has a GoFundMe that you can donate to if you'd like. You can get more information here.