Ouch!

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Yesterday a number of folks shared their experiences with hospital emergency rooms. Due, of course, to The Missus Herself and I spending a few hours ensconced in one of those on a Friday night in Little Rhody. (Hhmm, Friday Nights in Little Rhody, sounds like the name of a bad chick flick. If you ladies will pardon the expression.)

I have had four occasions where I have found myself in hospital emergency rooms as a patient. Once in Japan, once in Germany, once here in Little Rhody, some time ago, and of course once in Virginia very recently. That last one was when I sprained my ankle on Boxing Day last. Two involved alcohol while I was in the military but did not involve motor vehicles. The third involved acid reflux, my first (and worst) experience of that malady. As it doesn't paint me in a bad light, I'll talk about that one first. (The ankle thing I have already regaled you with, here.)

That way y'all can save up all of your scorn for the alcohol related incidents stories.

The Missus Herself was out with her Korean tribe, those ladies get together once a month, sans husbands, and relax in each other's company, and I was at home reading. Yes, it's an exciting and thrill-packed existence I lead.

Anyhoo. Whilst the lady of the house was "oot and aboot" I began to experience some discomfort in the chest area, right under the sternum. As the evening wore on, it got worse, I had chomped on a couple of antacids, to no avail, and was beginning to feel rather distressed. As I was thinking that a call to 911 might be in order, the love of my life rolled into the driveway.

"Hi honey, I'm home...  What's wrong? You look terrible!"

I explained, she piled me into the car and off to the ER we went.

When called forward, the receptionist wanted to know my complaint, and I was feeling so rotten I didn't quip "My taxes are too high" but went straight to "chest pains, pretty sharp ones too."

At which point I was plopped into a wheel chair and rolled back to an actual room, rolled onto a gurney and hooked up to half a zillion pieces of medical apparatus. I do believe we were in there from about 2100 to 0500 the next day. A bit more than six hours, neh? Once the medicos had determined that it wasn't a heart attack, they fed me some liquid that had the consistency of weak cement and tasted like mint flavored chalk. Yummy. But I got better after a course of Nexium, not the over the counter variety but the prescription strength.

Not a great story, but I was the innocent victim in that one. Now on to the stories where I gained my hard won reputation of being an idiot.

Head Wounds Bleed Like Crazy

Yup, even a minor head wound can look like Michael Corleone just shot you in the face over dinner. I know, I've had two. The pair of which earned me roughly 20 stitches. Messy indeed.

It was a squadron picnic, back in the day when very few women were in aircraft maintenance and alcohol was freely consumed by the troops, usually while doing something stupid. In the case of the boys of the Weapon Control Systems (WCS) shop of the 18th Avionics Maintenance Squadron (AMS) it was football. Yes, it started as two hand touch, but they didn't refer to us as "WCS Gorillas" for nothing. We could get real primitive in a hurry. Especially as the alcohol flowed.

So there I was*...

I was playing defense and saw the quarterback dropping back to pass. There! An opening! In I go, the QB is mine, glory is mine, and WHAP!

Freaking Mike McGuire, from Philly, who had perhaps the hardest head on the planet, threw himself in my path to protect his roomie, who was playing quarterback. Mike, never having played organized football, figured that a head butt would be a good technique to stop a fellow much larger than he, which I was. It was a most excellent plan on his part. I went down as if I had been pole-axed.

Yeah, kinda like that.
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I hit the ground feeling rather woozy. (Did I mention that we were also playing in the rain? Doesn't really advance the story, but it's a detail, innit?) Staggering to my feet, one of the chaps indicated that I was a bit bloody, so someone fetched me a wad of paper towels. I made it to the back loading dock of our shop (we were playing nearby) where the beer was. As I held the wad of paper towels to my wound, I drank my beer.

Over comes TSgt Norm Phillips (his initials were NKP, so the other sergeants called him NKP, which also was GI slang for a former USAF base in Thailand, Nakom Phenom, another one of those colorful details) who says, "Let me see that wound!" (No, he wasn't really asking.)

He turns to another airman and says, "Get him over to the clinic, he's gonna need stitches." Off we went, after NKP made me put my beer down, of course. There to be greeted by a very officious nurse captain in a very white uniform who bids me sit down while she did the paperwork.

By this time those paper towels were sodden with rain and blood and the pain was starting to kick in, i.e. the beer was wearing off. As the nurse droned on about rank, unit, social security number, how did this happen, was alcohol involved, etc., etc., my noggin was throbbin'. Thinking to speed things along, as in get medical attention, the next time the nurse asked me a question, I got out of the chair and leaned over her desk, removing the paper towels from the rather nasty cut over my right eye.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!" squealed the nice nurse captain as blood literally spurted all over her desk and that nice white uniform. I think I managed to spoil the paperwork as well.

"Take him in there! Now!"

Off I went, to be joined in a couple of minutes by two Air Force pararescue dudes (we call 'em PJs). These are guys who rappel off helicopters into jungles, deserts, mountains, etc. to rescue downed pilots. They fly in very powerful helicopters as PJs have giant brass cojones which weigh quite a lot.

So the PJs put some sort of cloth over my head (with a hole in it over the wound), shoot me up with a local anesthetic and commence to stitching up Yours Truly. They are having great fun making witty remarks like, "Use the thick thread so he'll have a cool scar." And, "Sew his eye shut so he can get disability!" We were all having such great fun, well, they were. I was bleeding like a stuck pig, seems I had severed a small artery under my eyebrow. Which they had to reconnect first, then stitch up the outer hull, er, skin.

When they were done they had me sit up slowly, which I did not and almost passed out. I was rubbing the back of my head, which was very wet and sticky, which I found odd, when one of the PJs pointed at the gurney and said, "You lost a shitload of blood airman, you need to take it easy for a couple of days."

When I looked where my head had been, sure enough, there was quite a puddle of the red stuff. I'd guess a pint or more. Don't think that's a lot? Well, the average homo sapiens only has eight pints to start, so I had lost about 12.5% of my blood. Which explained the extreme wooziness.

As the medicos had told me to take it easy, I took a week's leave for to travel to Korea and see The Missus Herself (who at the time was The Fiancée Herself, we wouldn't be married for another six months or so.) She was rather disturbed that where my right eye had been (and still was, under all the bruising) was this puffed up reddish mass. Unattractive I think she called it. After seeing myself in a mirror, well, I couldn't really argue with her.

Well, I still can't really argue with her. She's always right. And in the interests of domestic harmony, I always agree.

Second head wound was in Germany, it was received shortly after we had departed my going away party, at which I had gotten famously drunk, and upon departure from had had words with the Polizei who were responding to a noise complaint. They found my slurred German (which was properly pronounced and in those days I knew all the right words) to be most hysterical coming from an American airman. So they shooed me back to my hotel.

There, I decided to go outside and have a cigarette. (Yes, yes, I smoked back then. I quit five years ago so alles gut jetzt, ja?) Anyhoo, I was pretty blasted, all gyros were down, nav systems were offline and I was taking on a serious list to port. So when I decided to lean against the hotel while I smoked, it seems that the hotel leaned away and when my hand missed (due to the hotel moving mind you) the hotel leaned back in and smacked me on the top of my punkin head.

After the hotel so brutally attacked me I continued to head towards the earth with a gravity assist. I got up, brushed myself off and finished my smoke. Thinking that my head seemed to be sweating an awful lot. (I was wearing a ball cap, so the blood was somewhat contained.)

Weaving back up to the room, I took my cap off, ran my hand threw what was (and is) left of my hair and came away all bloody handed. I mentioned this to the love of my life, who gave some thought to just letting me bleed out, for the insurance money of course, but then thought better of it and called a buddy of mine to haul my sorry ass to the Krankenhaus. So off to the German ER I went.

There I met a very nice German lady doctor in a very white uniform, who berated me, auf Deutsch natürlich, to which I gave as good as I got (which is how I remember it).

The good doctor indicated that as I seemed to have a sizable quantity of beer on board, she thought it best not to use a local anesthetic while she sewed my head back together. I vaguely remember bellowing, "Do your worst Frau Blücher!"

At that she pitched in with a will.

I was returned to the hotel with a large patch of my remaining hair shaved away and thirteen stitches to boot. Two days later we flew back to the States and I entered retired status.

After not having seen my parents in seven plus years, all my Mom could say was, "What happened to your head?"

Long story Mom. While it took some 46 years to learn, I drink in moderation these days. And no, last March in Arlington doesn't count, special occasion dontcha know, harrumph, move along, nothing to see here.



*SJC