“Name the greatest of all inventors.”
“Accident.”
Mark Twain
This morning at 9
My mind still reels from my experiences in the last few years. A friend probably my only friend wonders how I keep going through all this. Sometimes I wonder too, the only answer I keep coming up with is it needs doing. This story needs telling. It needs telling now, I fear my time is limited. My health is failing.
Like I have said before I don’t tell this for the recognition. I don’t even want to recall the events but I need to. The only reason I tell this is because I know others are going through this. That just pisses me off.
I served this country in the Navy. I was proud to do that, I m not proud of the government.
Dec 3 2014
I loaded both my dogs into my old Jeep Cherokee One dog was giving me a hard time and did not want to get in. That tied me up for a few minutes. There was frost on the inside my passenger window as there usually is in the winter. It usually melts long before I get to the pavement. The sun was bright at ten am as it is past sunrise.
I headed out to the highway. A mile and a half of gravel road, separated by only a stop sign. A stop sign I have stopped at a thousand times. There used to be trees along most of that road. The farmer that owned the land had removed all the trees as they do here and the rest of the world.
My view of the corner was completely unobstructed. I did what I always do, I stopped at the corner, looked both ways. Out of the thousand times, I had stopped there, I had seen maybe a dozen vehicles go through that intersection.
Blinded for a second by the sun hitting the frost left on my passenger side window. I pulled out in front of a pickup with no running lights travelling too fast. A theory I would check again a few years later at the same time on the same day, with the same sun. The sun was shining from behind the vehicle that hit me.
I remembered seeing the inside of the cab of the pickup, I could see the passengers as they T-boned my jeep, before I was knocked out for a few seconds. I can still hear the sound of that crash now as I type this.
I woke a few seconds later, smoke was pouring out of my dash. I reached over to shut off the key. I remembered I carried 5 gallons of gas in the back. I did what I was trained to do in the Military. I quickly assessed the situation. And went into action. I tried my door it was racked. The driver’s window was gone. I crawled out, I didn’t want to burn. I got two steps and realized my neck and back were severely injured. I immediately layed down on the frozen ground.
By then the two passengers of the other vehicle were standing around me, I asked if they were ok. I asked about the dogs. One was dead but the other was ok. The two people were shocky, I was not. I asked them to look around and tell me about what was happening. Their vehicle was on fire, mine was smoking. I told them to stand back away from the vehicles.
I started to make phone calls first fire ambulance and police. Then I called a woman I had just met who owned a kennel, to come to look after my animals. I had ten cats at home, one dog running around scared that had just been in an accident. One dead dog, probably after breaking my neck and back on the way through the drivers’ side window.
She arrived first when I called she was just a few miles away. She arrived with the client I saw a day before. I asked him to take a few pics, for me.
BACK TO DAILY LIFE FOR A MOMENT:
I just went to town picked up a few groceries, the muffler is extremely loud. I may have installed it in the wrong direction. I will check that later.
The house felt cool and I thought I would get some more firewood ready, the problem was none was chainsawed into blocks. I put on my winter coveralls, a jacket, earplugs, safety goggles, (Really my biking glasses) more hearing protection and my bright orange chainsaw chaps. Someone asked why I wear them, I show them the slice on the leg of the chaps. They don’t ask again.
I got the saw ready gas and chain oil and remember the hitting something metal on the last trip out. I quickly ran the file through the teeth in both directions and head out to the log pile. I am on my knees cutting logs ready to be brought in for splitting into firewood.
If it wasn’t sad it would be comical, I shuffle over to the wheelbarrow bring it to the woodpile and on my knees again load it. I shuffle slowly under the heavy load trying to keep balance long enough to get it to the splitter. Looks like I am walking on Jupiter. Although without the diamonds raining down, as they say, is happening there.
Too exhausted to split tonight, I should have enough wood to last me the night. I hope.
Back to the accident: After laying on the Ice shivering for an eternity, I am sure it was only a half-hour, all the crews arrived. I talked to the EMT’s told them my neck and back were damaged I was fitted with a neck brace and carefully moved on to a backboard. Then into the ambulance.
The story will continue in Part IV
Pre skynryd plane crash
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