One year later, 'Bullet Bob' still counting blessings

CLOVIS - He's not quite back to riding, as he'd hoped, but "Bullet Bob" is still counting his blessings on the first anniversary of his catastrophic motorcycle wreck in northern New Mexico.

"This is the longest I've been off a motorcycle since I was 10 years old," Robert Vilandry told The News on Friday, reflecting on the past year of recovery and more than a half-century riding bikes. "I've had bad wrecks before but I've never been off more than three or four months."

Today marks exactly one year since that superlative wreck "up in Cimarron canyon," where he and his son Sean and some friends were riding after a motorcycle rally in Raton. The "Run to Raton" also takes place again this weekend, but the Vilandrys aren't attending this year. Bullet Bob said he'd like to, but he's not quite cleared to ride again.

"I still feel really rough, but it is getting better every day," he said in an interview. "I still have headaches. My left eye we found out a few weeks ago was totally blind, so I lost the left eye, and I did do damage to the right eye."

Losing the vision in one eye has impacted his depth perception, which still takes some getting used to.

Vilandry has an appointment Aug. 20 to assess the condition of his right eye, and depending how that goes may then consider again getting on a dirt bike. If that goes well he could mount a Harley again, but he's yet to buy one to replace the motorcycle damaged last year in the wreck.

"I just sold it the other day, that's the first time it got pushed in the front of my garage," he said of the motorcycle. "We loaded it up like, 'Holy cow, I am lucky to be alive."

That's putting it gently. Vilandry spent more than a month in recovery at an Albuquerque hospital, being treated for multiple brain bleeds, broken bones and extensive damage to his face. He had wires in his jaw and still carries screws and pins in his left leg and pelvis.

"Evidently I stopped an F-150 with my face," Vilandry told The News last year.

Vilandry knows he made some Facebook live videos communicating with his friends and family during his hospitalization, but doesn't have much memory of them. He said he's looking forward to when the social media provider dredges up the old videos for him on their anniversaries in the coming weeks.

The initial phase of recovery came with "a lot of free time at first," but Vilandry has subsequently kept busy running his antique shop on Clovis' Main Street and is grateful for that.

"Business has been good, for me to be able to come back and go to work and see my customers and friends, I think that's really helping me with my healing," he said Friday. "And I really would like to thank all my customers and all the people and churches that prayed. It was many churches that were involved - it wasn't just Catholic or Baptist or Lutheran - and I just want to thank everybody so much for their prayers and positive thoughts and everything. It's a lot of what got me through all of this."