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Praetorium Honoris

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Ouch!

(Source)
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.
(Source)
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

64 comments:

  1. As always, good story. 20 stitches from TWO headwounds? Slacker!

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  2. Was thinking..."4 visits!? Jeeez...." then realized I had 3 myself all due to kidney stones. Didn't have to wait long before they gave me meds to ease the pain then the wait to have scans to see where the little buggers were, THAT was another matter.

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    1. Kidney stones, been there, done that, once. Don't ever want to do that again.

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  3. I remember the football incident at the beer fest but didn't remember that little "Ramen Head" was the guilty party. I thought it was an impressive amount of blood but since I didn't see any brain matter leaking out I figured it was just a typical of head wound (I was under the influence of 'mass quantity's' of alcohol at the time so I was probably not the best judge of medical matters at the time).

    I've been to the ER over 16 times in Tulsa and Kansas City since 1980 for kidney stones and they have always been very responsive and treated me very well. Thank God for Demerol!!!!

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    1. Heh, Ramen Head, I'd forgotten that moniker. Yes, it was he. I was wondering if you remembered that day. So I have a witness.

      16 times? Dear Lord!

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    2. If I remember correctly, you were that one that gave Mike that moniker. If I also remember correctly, it was Dana (Andy) Andrews quarterbacking the chaos that resembled a football game.

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    3. Wasn't me...

      Bien que plausible, ce n'était pas moi.

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  4. Only been to ER once. Sliced my hand breaking a window trying to kill a critter or something, don;t really remember...I may have had some of that alcohol...well not may, as I remember in those years I never went to bed without staggering. I tried to stop the bleeding with a bullet thing meant for ladies. It didn't really work very well so it was off to the er.

    I no longer stagger to bed, never have more than a glass of wine, having a wife that is not loony-tunes makes a difference in attitude.

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  5. I'm sure glad that The Missus Herself Rolled in when she did.
    I worry about you, Sarge!

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    1. I have mellowed appreciably in my retirement. Before The Missus Herself came along I was a barbarian. She certainly civilized me!

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  6. Zero alcohol involved, but rushing to get a woodworking job done resulted in a mangled, but not lost, fingertip, a long wait in the ER.

    Takeaways.
    If you go up against high speed tools with your digits, you lose.
    Being calm, and doing a good job of bandaging the finger works against you in the triage.
    You don't know how long your fingernail is until you glance over at what the hand doctor is doing and notice that the bloody and ugly thing laying on the towel is your fingernail. (pretty near lost it at that point)

    I did enjoy overhearing the hand doctor ream triage a new one over the phone. The butt chewing that followed, "What do you mean you didn't look at it?" Was epic.

    My first trip to the ER was at the age of three, and of course I don't remember the details. My parents relate the story that I was so excited to see my just born sister, that I tripped going up the single step stoop and cracked my head. The single stitch was invisible until a few years ago when my hairline retreated enough to reveal that I actually have a forehead.

    I particularly enjoy rubbing the scar and telling her, "My first concussion was your fault."

    Good post, even though some of the ER memories aren't so pleasant.

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    1. Ah power tools, you would not believe the lengths I go to to keep my hands well away from rotating sharp things!

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    2. The only power tool that truly scares me is a router. Any instrument of doom that spins so quickly it reacts like an insane demon gyroscope that thirsts for blood is worth serous respect, and fear.

      Doesn't stop me from using them, but that first feeling of fear as you turn on Mr. Spin runs all the way to the bladder.

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    3. I won't go anywhere near those. Rotary saws and I have an agreement, I won't stick any appendages in their AO and they won't come after me. Routers and I have no such agreement.

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    4. Routers are the power tools that sit in their boxes and giggle at you in that high, sickly-sweet tone that insane clowns or left-wing politicians have in their voices.

      Turn them on and you can hear the voices in your head saying really bad things.

      Hmmmm....

      Maybe I need to get my routers blessed and the demons cast out. Possession, that's 9/10's of a router.

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    5. Andrew nailed it, I got hurt by a router.
      And it only a second of inattention to get badly hurt.
      And that feeling of fear now extends to all tools.


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    6. Ah, the second of inattention. Bad, very bad.

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  7. Wife was eight months and counting with child. Cut the end off my right ring finger misusing a hedge trimmer. Neighbor lady volunteered to drive me to the ER in our Mustang. She was having difficulty moving the seat far enough forward to operate the vehicle. In my attempt to assist, with my left hand, did some inappropriate touching. Try talking your way out of that situation.

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  8. My buddy took his dad's 65 F100 out for a spin. We were doing a donut in the middle of FM1729 when both front tires popped off the rims. The telephone pole tractor beamed us right in, square in the license plate. the bumper made a V shape, stuck out about 2 feet from the grill. My buddy had just gotten braces, his bottom lip was stuck to them, just slightly skewed off center line. I had just gotten my hands up to the dashboard when we hit, so I catapulted into the windshield. Nice bulged out spot on the passenger side. He broke off 5 teeth and didn't look worse for the wear, I had a tiny L shaped cut that poured blood down the front of my face and shirt. Dark green shirt with brown pin stripes.

    Old farmer picked us up and, unannounced, we showed up at his mom's work. She dropped me off in the next town at my mom's work. Doc Matthews looked me over, and said, "no stitches, not even a concussion. Your head must be really hard."

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    1. Breaking off teeth? Catapulting into windshields? Wow!

      You must have a hard head! (Feature, not a bug.)

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  9. Well, since I related my two massive adult trips to the ER, mahaps I shall relate the one time where I should have gone in but didn't.

    So, one wonderful Saturday, I was flying solo at a medieval war. I spent much fruitful hours smashing, bashing, crushing and hard poking my fellow armored fools, incurring nothing more than potential heat stroke and a layer of personal goo thick enough to cut with a knife. Finally all the hack and slash was over, and I, near dead to exhaustion, armored down, stripped off most of the now biohazard level 4 clothing I was wearing (seriously, I was known as 'cat piss man' amongst some, due to my rather sharp and rancid smell of spoiled sweat (hey, don't judge, okay, see how well you smell after spending 6 hours in armor in the hot Florida sun.)(and I swear most of the time the clothes could crawl by themselves.)) So, after spending a delightful time reacquainting myself with soap and water, and not being shot in the nuts by the two female archers I was showering with (no, not that way, seriously, I was so tired I couldn't care, plus they were friends of mine (and yes, shooting someone in the funsack with an arrow or bolt tipped with an inch+ diameter tip made out of basically tire hurts, even through a cup, especially when said arrow or bolt is applied like 9 friggin times in the span of 5 hours.))

    Ha, refreshed and after attaching the feedbag to my face (seriously, I think I eat slow. My friends have warned me that they're going to tattoo "Beware Intake" on my cheeks one of these days) and in fresh, medievalish clothes, I noticed that my departure time was still several hours away, I went in search of fun (or trouble, or both.)

    And, Lo and Behold, a game of Cabbage Ball was forming up amongst my fellow cleanish (some didn't shower yet, smartasses) warriors. Okay, Cabbage Ball is Rugby played with a cabbage but with only one rule. Seriously. Try to avoid dying. That's it. Avoid DYING. So, after the obligatory team selection (where I no longer was the last chosen, suck-it, childhood!) and after the pantsing of the star player and insulting of said star player's manhood (hey, ever tell you I'm an Asshole? Well, yeah. I am. And I can do it Sober.) we commenced playing. Game was good, really good. I got to break a really big guy's ribs, two of them. He taped himself up and came back in. And sidelined me from about 30 feet away. Where I got up and continued to cause mayham on the field, and had mayham committed against me, for about an hour more. Finally, all of us now really exhausted and laughing our asses off over everyone's stupidity, we went on our merry ways. Me, to the showers yet again, and then to home.

    Okay, Andrew, get to the point. Why did you need to go to the ER and didn't?

    Well, at the intersection of I-10 and I-75, after about 2/3rds of my journey home, I suddenly realized that the music I was listening to (Estampe, a kinda modern medieval music group, gee, go figure) actually wasn't at 1/4 beat. I apparently, from the aforementioned sidelining, received a concussion, continued to play, jouncing my knoggin around even more, and only the time spent showering again (alone this time) allowed my mind to settle down and recover enough to be somewhat functional.

    Last time I ever drove after playing Cabbage Ball. I think the game was finally self-banned by all of us idiots about a couple years afterwards.

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    1. Wow!

      Cabbage Ball makes Australian Rules Football look like croquet! Rugby? A sport for the infirm. Dang!

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    2. Fun times, if your idea of fun is sliding down a hill and breaking a leg.

      And, yes, we played with an actual cabbage. I think the death of the vegetable was what signaled the end of the game. That part of my memory may have died from, well, concussion.

      And we did this without armor, or 'personal' armor. Gosh, I was an idiot in my younger days (and I'd be right back at it if I could.)

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    3. Some of the things I did as a callow youth still terrify my nightmares.

      What. Was. I. Thinking...?

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    4. One of my friends gave me the weirdest complement/insult one day. He said I had the soul of a Beserker.

      Makes sense. Don't know how many fights I was in as a kid where, even after reaching the 'losing' point I just kept going, and going and going, until I was too tired to fight. Still was fighting, but kinda hard to toss a punch when your arm is noodling due to you just gassed out. Wouldn't feel the pain until afterwards, usually.

      As to thinking? Do I? Let's see, I play with explosives, hit and get hit with heavy sticks, play games that NFL idiots would blanch away from. But... I don't do heights, think people who jump out of perfectly good planes are f-ing idiots, don't climb mountains, don't drive in bad neighborhoods, didn't ever date 'crazy' for the sex. So I think I have moderated my 'deathwish.' Seriously, jump out of airplanes? Ride a donorcycle? That's just... Crazy.

      As to the things I did in my youth? I'd still be doing them if I had the time and money and wasn't tied down. I miss being stupid for fun.

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    5. Donorcycle! Never heard that one, love it.

      I rode on one once, a buddy of mine (who went on to do a career in the Navy) gave me a ride on the pillion of his bike. Which cured any latent desire I might have had to ride motorcycles. The ride was rather more exciting than I cared for.

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    6. Donorcycle is the derogatory term for murdercycles, I mean motorcycles, used especially by LEO, Fire Rescue and ER personnel.

      Want to know where those spare parts come from? Good chance it's from sumdood or sumchick riding a 2 wheeled deathtrap, usually without a helmet (maybe the reason they don't do brain transplants, yet.)

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    7. Good to know. (Murdercycle is also new to me.)

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    8. I was once first on scene at a crash where a drunk rode his bike right into a brand new, installed that day, barbed wire fence. It Veg-A-Maticed him.

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    9. First time I saw a motorcycle accident I was driving north on Merritt Island from Mathers Bridge on South Tropical Trail (think very narrow road in a 3rd world country, and you're not far off, no shoulders, tight turns, everywhere a blindspot.) I came upon a motorcycle vs full sized F350ish pickup. The EMS people were walking around with plastic bags and forceps and picking up pieces-parts, very fine pieces-parts of the two-wheeled deathmachine's rider. He and his bike hit the full-sized pickemuptruck hard enough to displace the engine of said truck into the cab, transmission bell housing and all. And very short skid marks from the pickup. Stopped it dead in it's tracks. Chunks of person and bike were splashed in a fan pattern out at least 150'. No earthly idea how fast the dead dude was going before he ended his life, but it must have been at least in the 90mph range, probably more. Truck driver survived with a broken leg and arm.

      Soooo, yeah, no.

      Mrs. Andrew's left leg shows what happens when the rider was doing everything right and still some idiot in a land-yacht runs over you. She cracked the engine block of her 500cc-ish bike, with crash bars and saddleboxes and all that fun touring stuff on it, through her leg. Good news, though. She got to be a human test-subject for the new-at-the-time external fixiters (that cage thingy that goes around a broken limb and has big friggin screws from the frame into the bone chunks to hold them in place. So all of you who have had external fixitors can thank her for the doctor not taking the screws out in his/her office without massive amounts of DRUGS! Really, doc took one screw out, wanted to take her to hospital and put her under, she said screw it and he removed the remaining 15 or so screws that bone had grown around. Tough lady, Mrs. Andrew (she would have to be to put up with me.)) X-rays of her leg look like some grade-school epileptic kid made a bone out of play-dough and let it get hard.

      Soooo.... Double yeah, no. No donor-murder-cycles for me. Trucks. I like trucks. And vans.

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    10. Ouch, barbed wire and motorcycles, not a good match.

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    11. I try to keep a weather eye out for the motorcyclists, the smart one have their headlights on all the time. And they still get run over by folks who have no more business driving than I do running the Catholic Church. Though I dare say I'd be better at that latter job than the incumbent.

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    12. Pope John Paul II in his current state can do a better job than the incumbent.

      It's like if the past president was pope. Appeasement with China, letting them choose cardinals. Pissing people off in Chile so bad that there is a mass exodus from the church. Appeasement with 'te infudels.' Makes me sick.

      Hmmm, I smell the potential of a future post. About popes who actually did their damned jobs under horrible conditions, like Pious V, or some other lesser known but really great pope. Hmmmm....

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    13. Concur.

      And that's not a bad idea.

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    14. I have noticed that city cops, who see low speed accidents, drive cars as their personal means of transport, while deputies and troopers, who see the high speed stuff, own pickups and Suburbans.

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    15. Interesting observation Scott, quite valid I believe.

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  10. A great post and comments as good or better. I feel a bit of a wimp, as I have no stories to compare with these.

    Thanks for the post.
    Paul L. Quandt

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    1. Trust me Paul, it's better to read about these things than experience them.

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  11. Maybe I will save my ER visit stories for WHTPFIHC, POCIR.
    IYKWIM
    Ooh, that was fun!

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  12. Ah, the old "head wound" story--I've more than a few of them, which probably explains more than just a few things. The "best" one was from 1986 which ended up with 40 stitches and a permanently (but only slightly) crooked hairline. That was a bicycle accident. No alcohol was involved, but neither was a helmet--those weren't worn on bicycles back then....

    I was living in Joliet IL and working two jobs. I commuted to both by bicycle; one was in Plainfield and the other was in Lockport (I later moved to Lockport). The ride from Plainfield to Lockport took me over a steep bridge across the Des Plaines Canal; getting up that thing was an iron bitch unless you already had a good bit of speed, but the coast down it was a pure joy. Especially in the summertime. My workplace was a few yards from the bottom of that bridge.

    I hit the bridge at a good speed and kept pumping until I got to the top and then I coasted--nice cool breeze blowing the sweat off of me. And then the utility truck cut in front of me just before the railroad tracks at the base of the bridge. My brakes were less than optimal and there was no way I could stop without hitting the back of that truck so I tried to go around it--bad move. The pavement there was cracked just ever so slightly but the front tire caught it sideways and the bike got chopped out under me as I flew through the handlebars--managed somehow to land on my head....

    It's kinda true that you hear bells when you get hit on the head like that; in my case it was a single long deep bell: "Dddooonnnggggg...!" Didn't feel a thing. Woke up to a cop telling me not to move and then being put on a board and loaded onto an ambulance. Right outside my office. I saw the office manager and said, "Yvonne, I'm not going to be in today--I don't feel so good." She was a bit flighty at the sight of blood, and I looked like I'd stuck my head in a bucket of it--O Positive, to be precise....

    Nothing really hurt until later. The first pain I felt was from the tetanus shot I got--that's a story by itself--the head didn't hurt until the next day, but what really surprised me was my chest was so sensitive I could barely stand to wear even a light shirt. Added groan factor--I kept hearing Sting on the radio singing "King of Pain"....

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  13. I'd separated from the Army in 1984 and was up to date on all of my shots--including tetanus. In those days it was a gel injected IM and hurt like Hell, so I wanted to avoid getting it again. The ER nurse insisted and of course I argued with her; finally she said, "OK" and walked away. A few minutes later my thigh started hurting and I realized she stuck me while we were arguing--a real pro that one, and I'm not being sarcastic.

    Some 20 years later I was in a similar spot, in the ER getting a tetanus shot after being assaulted by a local drug addict (the police practically twisted my arm to go to the ER; I just wanted to wash up and go to bed) and I hardly felt it--21st Century technology at it's best....

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  14. Eight pints? I always thought it was more like 4 quarts! I called my Cousin, Milissa West, MD, to find out which one of us was right, and it turns out we were both wrong, humans have about a gallon of blood. I guess both of us are losing data as we grow old.

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    1. Don't know about you but my x assures me I have 289 gallons of blood.

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    2. No way you've got that much Cap'n. The Navy must have sucked you dry a few times!

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  15. Repeated injuries to your head is not good head work. I hope you've learned. If not, I think your wife should get you a helmet to wear around the house.

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  16. Every now and then I write here. But I try to be brief and not write in paragraphs,
    I have this bridge. You can buy it cheap at twice the price.:)

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    1. Hahaha!

      (So where is this bridge? Asking for a friend...)

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  17. I always liked the old Tapanzee. I deathrolled under the Throgs Neck in November more times than I can count. I reliably took the other bridge when I lived in Picatinny.

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    1. Other bridge, as in the GW?

      (To me it will always be the Tappan Zee Bridge, the old one and the new one. Mario Cuomo and the state legislature of New York can go self-fornicate. I just realized that I haven't been that way in over 5 years!)

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  18. I can definitely relate to the acid reflux. Twice I've been to the hospital with chest pains. The first time, 12-13 years ago, I wasn't sure if I needed to go to the ER or not, but my wife decided on caution. It was really bad acid reflux. The 2nd time, 2-3 years ago, went in a couple of hours from "discomfort" to full-on chest pain and physical distress. Then, suddenly, something heaved repeatedly inside my chest. I didn't even think about it, I went to my car to go to the hospital ~1-mile away, and called my wife on the way. For some reason (I can guess why, but it's just me) I didn't even think of calling 911 or asking a cow-orker to drive me to the ER. They wired me up, then held me overnight (in a bed in a hallway), and during comprehensive testing the next day, I suffered one of the most severe migraines I've ever had. In the middle of a CAT scan (or MRI, not completely sure which machine they were sliding me into), I began sweating profusely, became nauseous to the point of vomiting, the pain in my head went to 11+, the pain in my chest went to Alien chest-burster levels, and all of a sudden I found myself on a gurney with people rushing around and attaching wires. I was simultaneously really pissed at them and confused and grateful for the attention. Eventually, it was diagnosed as "esophageal spasms" (my esophagus was still coiled up like an Alien larva) with acid reflux as the trigger, but I've never suffered anything like that again. Thank God. I've changed my ways and kept it at bay.

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    1. Oh my! That sounds awful beyond belief. Glad you pulled though mate!

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  19. Two morphine injections knocked the pain back considerably, but B/P was 224/124, which does explain the headache. I suppose, like Renaissance armor, my brain has been 'proofed' against strokes for a few years. :-/

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    1. Man! If you didn't stroke out then, you may not.

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