Sunday before Memorial Day hubby was putting new brake pads on the car. It was a beautiful day, I had the day off, and was sitting on the picnic table talking with him while he worked. I was doing my suburban hillbilly thing and rolling him cigarettes. I saw the car rolling forward.....................
He could not move in time and it all collapsed on his leg. The rotor hit his thigh and calf.
I dropped to the ground and tried to get that stupid jack to work, but could not do anything with it and called 911. They were here within two minutes.
They had the largest jack I have ever seen, but oh...I forgot, as I was messing with the jack I am not sure where my brain went, but I remember looking up and there was a face just a few inches from mine and I remember thinking, who is this, as I looked at her. Turns out my brain recognized her about 15 minutes later. My neighbor had heard me screaming and calling 911 and she had rushed over to assist. We even tried to lift the car, but it is a 4 door sedan and not a little Yugo!!
He was in shock and I have not ever seen a living person the color of putty. His blood pressure was down to 85! No external bleeding, just internal damage and shock. I rode in the front of the ambulance to the hospital.
After 8 hours in the ER and 8 x-rays later they tell us that his tibia is broken, the main long bone in your shin, and we will need to this leg immobilizer until he sees an orthopedic surgeon.
He has been living on Vicodin because it has been a very painful break, but now we know that surgery is not necessary. The break is too close to his knee and any metal they put in would be too uncomfortable and need to be taken back out after a year or so. NOT!!
You may think that this is the end of the story, but no............ there was something even more scary than the whole broken leg. What could that be you ask? The part where we had to get home!!
They told us that he would be getting a room and staying the night, so mentally that is what we were prepared for. Then later the nurse came and suddenly told us that we were being released! It was 1:00 AM. We were totally unprepared to go AND we had no car! The nurse said that she would call us a cab that they do it all the time. We did not want to call family, or friends, at that hour to come all the way to the city where the ER was located. It was a good drive from where we live. Our local hospital is not a Major Trauma facility.
So they wheel us out and we wait for the taxi. This rickety cab, a term I use loosely for the vehicle that arrived, pulled up and we proceeded to load hubby & myself into the back seat. It was so filthy that I could not have even tried to get in the front seat! I was smashed against the door as hubby was stretched out on the other side of me. He was still reeling from the morphine that he had been given several times that night, so he was not as aware of the scariness of this situation.
As we began to pull away this cab was creaking and grinding. When he hit the expressway, at 65-70 MPH, I was white knuckled all the way home! There is no way that car should have been going that fast! He had several engine lights on and it smelled weird in there. He had the radio up and I had to tell him how to get to our town. Once we got off the highway, as we drove through town, he was continuously crossing the yellow line! He was either drunk or very high. I was thankful to make it home.
Once I got hubby out and up to our front porch I leaned him against the wall. He chain smoked and I got a gallon sized glass of wine!! Thank god....day over!! Home in one piece.
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