Ouch: Day 1

    It seemed like a good idea at the time (A lot of my stories start this way, unfortunately.).  The hill didn’t really look that steep.  I knew it was steep just not that steep.  I was on my wife’s quad and had climbed up the first 150 yards or so several times in an attempt to get an adequate look at the final bit without either being run over, stuck, or rolling down the same hill.  It looked reasonable, I could make that last 30 or 50 feet no sweat.

    I turned and went down and cruised out onto the flats and stopped.  I watched for a minute or two.  There were motorcycles and quads heading in every direction.  Currently, there were two people stuck on different parts of the hill.  There were several trails to the top, all started out at reasonable angles of incline, it was just the last 40 or 50 feet that people had problems with.

    I sat on the quad at the bottom of the hill.  The Honda had a ton of torque and way more than enough power to get to the top.  If I could keep the momentum up and the front end down there was no reason I couldn’t make it.  Just because I hadn’t seen a quad do it yet didn’t really mean anything.  There were only two guys on bikes that had made it up to the top.  But, hey I had four wheels?  What could go wrong?  What would be the worst that could happen?  I would embarrass myself, like I had never done that before.

    I studied the entire hill, five guys off their machines on the trails.  Okay I was going to do it.  One more slow pass for a good last look and then I was going to do it.  I put my helmet on, started the quad and looked around to make sure nobody was heading for that part of the hill or was going to intersect my intended path of travel (Sounds official doesn’t it?  I just didn’t want to get blindsided by some inebriated knucklehead.).

    I put her in gear, let the clutch out and shot towards the hill, shifting up until just before the bottom, where I revved the machine up and started the climb.  I got to the steeper section just below the crest and braked and turned, giving it a last thorough inspection.  There was a narrow slot I would need to hit dead on to make it.  Spalling shale on both sides, the edges didn’t look too sharp.  I turned right and went around a small knob and started down the hill.  I shifted my weight back, sticking my significant butt as far back as possible to keep the back end of the quad where it was supposed to be.

    Traction shouldn’t be a problem, the material in the slot was rock, the material just before the last bit was a softer dirt in contrast to the smaller rock and soil of the rest of the hill.  I cruised to the bottom and out onto the flats.  I looked for one of the four guys I was with.  I didn’t see any of them. They all claimed later that they had seen me.

    I looked at the hill one last time, picked my line and headed up.  Things were going well.  Speed and momentum were good at the point of no return.  I went left and shot for the slot, moving up over the handlebars in an effort to keep as much weight as possible over the front end, to keep the front end down.

    I hit the slot dead-nuts on and gave it a bit more throttle.  The quad drifted left out of the slot and the front end came up.  This part of the hill was pretty dang steep.  It hadn’t looked this steep?  And, most definitely the slot had looked much wider.  Someone had misled me greatly, and when I found out who, there was going to be hell to pay, so to speak.

  I managed to get the front end back down and the quad back into the slot.  Oddly enough, it didn’t really fit so well into the slot.  It must have shrunk since I had started my ascent.  Some strange geological phenomena had occurred, I has going to be famous, right up there with James Hutton as soon as I crested this mountain and solved the mystery of the narrowing slot.

    Most likely I should not have been thinking of fame, fortune, and future Nobel prizes in physics and geology.  I probably should have been concentrating on what I was doing.  The next few seconds were critical.  A definite succession of thoughts went through my now fully attentive mind.  The first of which occurred as the front end again rose.  Holy crap!  I can’t get any more weight over the front end.  Holy Moses!  I am in some serious trouble here.  Shit, I have to bail, I am not sure that is going to help.  Fuck, My wife is really going to be pissed at me.  That is pretty much how it went.  As the front end lifted the second time I knew I was screwed and needed to get away from the machine as quickly as possible.

    There was nothing but very sharp shale to the uphill side, funny, it hadn’t looked that sharp earlier?  So the only alternatives remaining were to stay with the quad and go over backwards with it, or bail off to the down hill side.  So off to the down hill side I went.  Now, here is where I ran into the first problem.

    I am not really sure how this happened but my left foot became tangled up in the quad.  The result being that instead of a clean dismount I was twisted clockwise and there was a brief but forceful meeting with the face of the hill.  I managed to break free from the quad, unfortunately it hit me in the back, propelling me, and with some force I might add, away from the slot and down the hill.

    Ah, relieved that quad and I had parted ways and I was relatively unscathed, maybe an ankle problem or two but in good shape.  There was one problem that I became aware of however.  The quad had bounced uphill.  I was downhill.  The quad would be coming down hill fairly soon.

    This probably wasn’t good.

    I distinctly remember getting to my knees and thinking Oh man, I can’t beat it down the hill, maybe I can crawl out of the way.  It was far too steep to stand so I started crawling like hell.  If crawling were an Olympic sport I would be a gold medalist.  Unfortunately crawling isn’t an Olympic sport and I just plain old got the shit kicked out of me.

    My last relatively coherent thought, possibly my first also depending on who you choose to ask, was, “oh crap.”  Then I was hit by the quad and things became a bit fuzzy. I do know we were pretty darn friendly for a few moments. As the dust settled I found myself about two thirds of the way down the hill lying on my back, the quad was at the bottom right side-up, still running.  Beautiful machines those Hondas.

    I was still on my back.  The sky was a wonderful pale blue.  There is absolutely nothing like having the living snot kicked out of a guy to help him appreciate the colors surrounding him.

      I took inventory of my body parts and what hurt.  That was getting difficult so I decided to concentrate on the parts that didn’t hurt.  This became difficult also, mostly because I couldn’t find any.  Due to previous life experience I was fairly certain my back and neck were okay, so I kind of rolled over and sat up.

    I promptly scared the living crap out of myself.  My chest started snapping, cracking, and popping.  I thought perhaps I had turned into a bowl of Rice Crispies™.  My chest didn’t hurt too badly; it just made a lot of noise.  I was a bit concerned about the noise.  The rest of my body was feeling somewhat abused.  My right shoulder hurt pretty good, but I had a full range of motion, with some very nice pain but a full range of motion nonetheless.  I figured that was a good thing and although I wasn’t really feeling all that great I decided I was pretty lucky because I would be able to walk away under my own power.  Well probably, my left ankle was a bit sore but again due to previous life experience, too much previous life experience some wits might say, I was pretty sure there were no serious injuries down there.  My foot was still pointing in the proper direction and there were no bones sticking out.  That I could see.

    I looked up to see Best Friend Dave (that is his name Best Friend Dave it says so on my cell phone) running up to me.  He yelled, “Are you okay?”

    I found it was too much effort to yell, so I slowly flashed him a wave with two fingers, as in give me a couple of minutes.  He promptly turned around and headed down the hill telling the people on their way up I was okay?  I couldn’t even speak.  It was like a cartoon, little birdies were flitting about my head.  Perhaps I should lie back down for a moment to collect my wits, so to speak.

    I awoke looking into a woman’s eyes that contained no small measure of concern.  She began asking me silly questions like what year is it, what had I eaten for lunch, huh?  How was I supposed to remember that, it was like four hours ago or something, sheesh.  I must have answered most questions with sufficient clarity that we could evaluate the rest of my body.  She said she was a nurse and began to take stock of my condition. 

    After a bit I could see what was coming, and I wanted no part of it.  If my wife had to come and get me from the hospital she was going to be mad, at me.  I begged and pleaded.  If I could have gotten on my knees I would have.  After much discussion and promises on my part that I was fine, except maybe my ribs which they would do nothing for but say, “Yup, they’re broke, that’ll be ten grand please.”  Best Friend Dave and the unknown nurse agreed to help me stand up and get down the hill.  I figured we could argue about getting back to camp later.

    I had Best Friend Dave and TJ on either side of me and we were making slow progress.  My ankle hurt a bit more than I was expecting but it was okay.  Now this next part is second-hand as I really haven’t any recollection of the next few minutes.  From what I have been told, and I know I was a tad on the tired side, I started snoring as we were walking down the hill.  The best argument against this scenario is that I have never snored once in my life, perhaps a snort or two but never a snore. 

    My next recollection was of a loud voice yelling at me?  What the hell was that all about?  Couldn’t they see I was drowsy?  The next was of quickly opening my eyes to find Best Friend Dave and the nurse kneeling over me with a rather concerned look in both pair’s of eyes, then relief.  Also, oddly, now it was very quiet.  I wanted to ask if I had fallen asleep but I knew if I asked I would never get back to camp.

    I immediately began a campaign to get my helmet off and get down the stinkin’ hill.  They conceded to removing my helmet without too much argument.  Helping me up however was another story.

    While I had been napping, I was very tired, some idiot had called 911.

    While doing my best to cajole the nurse, Best Friend Dave, and a few others to help me up I noticed a Park Ranger plane circling overhead.  Things were desperate, if I didn’t get out of there in a hurry this was going to turn into a big deal and not only would my wife be mad at me she might do something rash, like get rid of some of our toys.

    As I look back at the following chain of events I now realize that I was betrayed by Best Friend Dave.  Several people present turned to look to the bottom of the hill and then turned back with relief visible in their eyes and agreed to get me up and off the stinkin’ hill.  We got me up and I had taken perhaps three steps, when all hell broke loose, sort of.

    This female ranger was running towards me, and she was, in no uncertain terms, kinda’ hot, actually she was smokin’ hot.  And she was coming towards me?  I was somewhat flattered until she ran behind me, grabbed my head and held me in such away that I could not move my head, neck or back.  Then she actually asked me, and not very politely I might add, what the heck was I doing standing up and just how dumb was I?  She wasn’t really as attractive as I had originally thought.

    Suddenly there were 48 paramedics, firemen, ambulance attendants and I don’t know what else present.  In no time at all they had me immobilized, including my right shoulder, which was starting to kinda’ hurt on a plastic backboard (let me tell you, the new plastic backboards are a hell of a lot more uncomfortable than the old wood ones) with this big neck collar thing on and they were getting ready to cut my shirt off.

    “WHOA!  Hey guys this is my favorite t-shirt. You’re not cutting this off.”

    “Sir, we are cutting this shirt off, you don’t have a choice,” the guy with scissors said.

    Now, this is where I became a little, surly I suppose.  “The fuck you are.  Listen sport, there is some serious family history behind this shirt and you can just pull it over my head.”

    This guy was a pro, “Sir, we have to gut your shirt off, we can’t risk pulling it over your head.  You are already strapped down and even if I was willing to risk further injury to you I couldn’t get the shirt off you if I wanted to.”

    I am not a totally unreasonable guy, contrary to popular opinion.  “Okay, okay, I know you are just doing your job, sorry.  Cut away, sorry to jump on you like that.”

    He was actually a good guy and replied, “It’s okay, I understand I don’t want to cut it anymore than you want it cut.”

    As he began cutting I asked, “Is it 2005 or 2006?”

    Pretty much everybody froze, from somewhere a voice came, “I don’t know, you tell us.”  That definitely sounded like a statement and not a question.

    “No, no, on the shirt, is it the 2005 or 2006 shirt?  It’s October of 2007 right now.”  Crap, what a bunch of morons.

    “Uh, I don’t see a date on it?”

    “On the left breast,” I said.

    “Uh, 2006”

    “Crap”

    This is when they began discussing a life flight out of the park and to somewhere. There was much discussion.  I was arguing vehemently against it but I don’t think anyone was listening to me. Eventually a decision was reached and my condition was down-graded to long bumpy ambulance ride.

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    As I was wheeled into the emergency room the nurse looked up and immediately began berating the ambulance attendants.  “How come he doesn’t have an IV?”

    “Well we were debating it,” one of them said.

    “What if he has a punctured lung or a ruptured spleen and needs surgery STAT.  Look at him; clearly he is in shock, never transport a shock patient without an IV.”  She was on a roll and kept up with the verbal beating.

    All I could see was the ceiling, the paint was peeling and there were dead bugs in the lights.  Great, not only do I get some battle-axe of a nurse, I am in a filthy backwater hospital.  Lori isn’t going be very happy with me.  Maybe I should just tell them to start digging my grave now.

    The nurse came over and looked down at me.  She was quite nice actually.  She started an IV and then said she would see what she could do about getting me something for the pain.  That’s when the first doctor examined me.  He may have been able to speak English but I couldn’t really swear to that.  He waved his hands over me and mumbled some incantations.  I think.  The nurse acted like she understood what he was saying so I decided the doctor guy must know what he was doing.  He looked down at me and I got my first glimpse of him.  There wasn’t a straight tooth in his head.  Any minute now I was confident he was going to pull out a chicken and sacrifice it over me.  I was getting a bad feeling about this.

    I was hooked up to the hospital heart monitor, mostly I think so I could hear the reassuring bumb-bump-beep of my heart, that way I would know I was still alive. I was left alone, so I started counting the dead bugs in the light overhead.  A woman came in to get my medical history.  I never did see her but she seemed very nice.  When asked if I had any allergies I was very specific about morphine and my immediate and violent reaction to it.  She duly noted everything down, I assumed, and left.

    My beautiful wife arrived and looked down at me, then lovingly kissed my forehead.  I told her what was happening and what I knew, which amounted to nothing.  The nurse came in again and introduced herself to my wife and they conferred in hushed tones so that I could not distinguish any words, naturally.

    I asked the nurse if I could get out of the backboard as it was getting very uncomfortable and in addition to a few other aches I was currently experiencing my back was starting to spasm.  She said I had to remain on the backboard until my spine was cleared and that that wouldn’t happen until I had a CT Scan and some X-rays but, not to worry she had a shot for the pain.

    “What is it?”  I anxiously asked, I could actually hear her answer before another word was spoken.

    “I have some morphine.  You’ll feel much better in no time at all”

    “No, thank you, I’ll just stay like this, the cure is worse than the disease, so to speak.”

    She looked down at me, “Why, what happens?”

    “Well, I will immediately and violently vomit everything I have consumed in the past week, and then I will continue with the dry heaves for a few days.  Immediately upon the initiation of barfing my skin will turn yellow, cold, clammy, and I will sweat profusely.”  I was pretty firm with the entire statement I thought.

    “Hmnn,” she responded, “well those can be normal side effects.  You are in quite a bit of pain, so let’s just give it a try shall we?”

    “Thanks for reminding about the pain part, I’d forgotten.”  Damn, that’s me, winning friends and influencing people with big needles while I am restrained.  “Listen I’ll just suffer okay, maybe I could have an aspirin, or a pain pill or something?  Do you think that since this is a hospital and all that maybe there is a pain pill around somewhere?  Just a thought.”

    “Well maybe we should…”

    “You might want to take his word on this,” my wife said.  “He’s not exaggerating, it’s a very rapid, violent, disgusting reaction.”  My wife is also a nurse and some secret medical code word she had used convinced the voice with the needle to look for something I could take orally.

  At this point I was really becoming uncomfortable on the backboard and began surreptitiously looking for an escape.  An X-ray tech arrived and whisked me off before the nurse returned with a pain pill for me.  The tech took me to the CT Scanner, she was maybe 5’ 2” and probably 110 lbs. dripping wet.  She looked at me and then the scan table she had to get me on.  “You can’t really move much can you?” 

    God, they grow ‘em bright around here.  “Nope, sorry I am a bit tied up, so to speak, if you want to let me out of here I can help though.”

    “Not until the doctor says, sorry.  I don’t want to drop you so I’m going to have to get some help to get you into the machine”

    Hmnn, brighter than I thought.

    She returned with an aide whose knuckles were dragging on the floor.  He stuffed me, literally, into the machine.  “Okay just get comfortable and I’ll be done in 20 or 25 minutes.”

    Get comfortable?  She’s even denser than I thought.  You’d think they could find someone to do this with at least the IQ of houseplant.  At least there were no dead bugs on the inside of the machine.

    Eventually the Tech and the knuckle-dragger came back and moved me onto a gurney and left me out in the hall with the knowledge that another tech would be along soon to take some X-rays.  I was very comforted by the knowledge.  By this time my back was a single giant muscle spasm, my chest hurt pretty good, I was getting a stiff neck from the collar thing and my shoulder hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.  In general everything was getting stiff and sore.  On top of which there were substantial amounts gravel, sand and rock in many of the abrasions and cuts that were starting to irritate me.

    After there was no sign of life for several minutes I began to call out.  “Hello, Hello, anybody around, please?  Somebody?”  I was getting frustrated and I was hurting.  There did not seem to be any form of life around.  Well, except for the fly on the ceiling.

    I tried a change of tactics, “Listen I am going to take all this stuff off if there is nobody here in the next couple of minutes.”  I started counting.

    At 30 I decided that I was close enough to 120 and that this stuff was coming off.  If I could just get my legs up I would feel a lot better.  With my free hand I ripped the Velcro™ straps off the collar and then the upper most strap over my forehead.  Damn that feels good.  Then I ripped off the strap over my chest and tried to sit up, sort of.  It turns out that it is quite a bit of work to do all this with one hand and to sit up when everything hurts.  There was a fair amount of grunting and groaning going on.

    I had to sit up a bit to get the Velcro™ strap across my waist off.  I grunted with pain and effort while managing to raise myself a little.  A young mother and her daughter were coming down the corridor towards me.  As they heard me and the mother saw me weakly grappling with the Velcro™ strap, she moved her daughter behind her, put her head down and moved as close to the opposite wall as she could get the two of them and hurried by as I struggled with the restraint.  Eventually it came loose and I was finally able to get my feet up and flat under my butt.  God, does that feel good.

    A moment later some guy I had never seen before came skidding to a stop next to me exclaiming, “What are you doing?  You can’t do that the doctor hasn’t released your back yet!  I still have to take a lot of X-rays of you.  You can’t do that.  What am I supposed to do now?”

    “Take the x-rays?”  I suggested.  Damn, relax man.  Where do they find these people?

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      “Listen,” the nurse said, “you need something for the pain.  This isn’t morphine it’s dilaudid, a synthetic morphine, and I am giving this to you slowly with another medicine to counteract the nausea and a placebo type fluid, you shouldn’t have a reaction to dilaudid this way.”

    “Honey,” my lovely wife looked at me, “she’s right you need something for the pain, maybe this will work.  She’s going to go very slow and we will both watch you okay?”

    I love my wife more than anything, I can’t deny her anything.  Plus, I just hurt too damn much and I was too damn tired to put up a fight.  “Whatever you guy’s think is right, just get me out of here okay?”

    “I’ll do what I can John.” She leaned over and kissed me softly.

    Then the dilaudid was in my system.  It sure felt like morphine to my body. “Get me a bucket please,” I feebly moaned.  The nurse slowed the injection.  I started sweating.  “Yeah this is good ladies, not only does everything hurt I wanna’ barf now also.”

    The two of them were relentless, they kept me on the edge of tossing my cookies for 20 minutes or so, as slowly they doped me up.  Finally they finished.  The sheets were wet with sweat, I could taste the bile in my mouth and my stomach was in acute revolt mode.  I must have looked pretty bad. 

    My lovely wife looked a bit concerned.

    The nurse noticed, “You don’t look so good, does ‘dilaudid’ not agree with you?”

    I didn’t bother with a response, my eyes remained closed.  Fucking idiot, where do they find these people.

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    A different doctor came in.  At least this one had all his teeth.  “Well the X-rays don’t show any broken bones in your back or arm.  I think we can get you off the backboard now.”  I guess somebody had to graduate at the bottom of the class.  “Hey, wait a minute; you are already off the backboard?  What…”

    “Don’t worry I did it myself I am not going to sue you.  Can I go home now?”

    “No not yet, we don’t have the CT Scan results yet, we can’t rule out any internal soft tissue injuries at this time.”

    “When do you expect the results?”  There was probably a bit of frustration in my voice here.

    The doctor looked at my wife, “Well…we can’t seem to find your CT Scan sir.”

    Oh holy mother of God, had this moron even gone to medical school?  Maybe he went to that medical school in Grenada that the army had stormed years ago and he was one of the ‘rescued guys’ and the government or school felt sorry for him and just issued him a diploma or something.  Yeah, that must be it.  “Excuse me.  Did you just say that you lost my CT Scan?  Because I am really hoping that I did not hear you correctly.  Maybe my hearing has been affected by recent events.”

    “Oh no, they aren’t lost, we just can’t find them is all.  You see there…”

    By all that is profane, this is unfuckingbelievable.  Did the ambulance take a wrong turn and deliver me to the “Twilight Zone”?

    “…there was some glitch in the file transfer process and it seems that…”

    “Uh, excuse me for a minute please.  Do you guys burn your trash in this community?”

    “What?” the doctor guy wore a puzzled expression, “do we burn our trash?  No of course not, why do you ask?”

    “No reason, just curious.”  I looked at my wife, pleading for deliverance from, from…from

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    “Well we are considering admitting you Mr., Mr. ah…”

    “No way, you can’t admit me.  You just said my back was fine and that there is no internal bleeding.”  I did not like the direction this conversation was heading.

    “Excuse me doctor, please let me talk to him for a moment.”  This nurse got right in my face, six inches from my nose to hers, “John, you have been in a TRAUMA a very serious TRAUMA, do you understand, you need to be under observation for at least another 24 hours, a very serious TRAUMA.”  She stood up with a rather smug look on her face.

    “Excuse me,” I said, “but I believe it is a law that you cannot keep me here against my will unless I am under arrest.  I’m pretty sure I haven’t been arrested today have I?”  Now I looked rather smug.

    Before the situation had a chance to escalate my lovely wife asked, “What about his ankle?  How is ankle, what did the x-rays show?”

    The doctor and nurse looked at each other, “Ankle?”

    “Yes, his ankle, you didn’t  X-ray his ankle?”  Lori went to the foot of the bed and uncovered my left ankle.  Evidently, it was impressively swollen.

    “Well we are going to need an x-ray of that, it doesn’t look so good,” stated the doctor.  Holy Moses, could this be any more inane?  “Order an x-ray of that ankle nurse, is there anything else I should know about?”  What the hell?  Whose side was Lori on anyway?

    I had reached my limit.  I started counting dead fly’s in the light over my bed.

    Sometime later a tech showed up with a portable X-ray machine and took films of my ankle.  Thirty minutes later the doctor with all his teeth was back at my bed.  “There is nothing broken in your ankle, you have torn cartilage in your left sternum and more than likely a broken rib on the left.  There is no internal bleeding and your right shoulder is not broken but there is more than likely something wrong with it.”  Fucking brilliant this guy.  I would suggest you see an orthopedist in a few days when the swelling has decreased.  IF you can walk, I’ll release you.”

    I looked at my wife, “Help me up, I’ve gotta’ take my lizard for a walk.”  She helped me up and I walked to the restroom.  When I came back I sat on the bed and let everyone know I could walk and was ready to leave, now.  A wheelchair arrived, Lori was handed the release papers, a prescription for pain pills.  It was 2:30 am, I don’t know where they expected us to fill the prescription but I thought it better not to ask.  Then my lovely wife and I walked out of the hospital. 

    Camp was about an hour-and-a-half-way from the hospital and half way home.  As I was removing the hospital gown in camp I asked her if I still needed the electrical leads, cable and all, attached to my chest.  She took the leads and patches off.  Then I asked her if I still needed the IV needle in my arm.  This is pretty much where she came unglued.

    “You still have the IV in your arm?”  She said kind of loudly.

    “Well yeah, but hey, I didn’t do it honey, not on purpose anyway, sorry.  Maybe it would be best if you just took it out in the morning?”

    “No it needs to come out now, just a minute, let me get some more light.  You know, that was a pretty scary hospital.  That’s where the lower third of the classes end up you know.”

    Hmnn, I never would have guessed.

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    After learning a bit more about my wife's reaction to the accident, I decided an afternote was in order.  It is a funny story I think, however I was extremely lucky that I was in-fact able to walk out of the hospital that morning.  This is not something that should be attempted by amateurs.

    I was unaware that until a couple of weeks ago my wife had been having nightmares about walking into the hospital to find her husband strapped to a backboard, with a full neck brace on and all but one arm completely immobilized.  That's not funny, in-fact, it scares the hell out of me.

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You would think that the people at work would have something better to do with their time.