Came across yet another collision on my way home from the mill today. Biker lying there on the warm pavement in a heap. I have to re-think my route home.
Took me a while to stop. That is the way it is when you are keeping up with the flow of traffic in our speed mad world. I grabbed my first aid bag from behind my seat and walked real fast back to the heap of biker about an eighth of a mile behind me.
When I got there, there were already two women working on the guy as the injured biker's riding buddy looked on. I have never seen women doing first aid at the side of the road, with the exception of ambulance attendants. Probably just the time of day I am on the road. Men go in to work earlier and head home earlier than most women.
Looked like both of them knew exactly what they were doing. They were working as a team. One of them was holding the guy's head as the other searched the bust up motherfucker for injuries. I identified myself as a first aid guy and asked, "You gals need a hand?"
The smaller of the two gals barked at me. "Put on your gloves and support his right leg. His thigh is broken and so is his lower leg." As I did so she was asking the biker if he could feel her hands on his legs. He told her, "I can't feel a fucking thing."
Fuck. At least his blood was not spilling into the ditch.
That was when I noticed one of the two women shedding a tear. Jesus. I did not want to look at that so I looked at the other woman holding the guy's head. Her eyes were all watery too. Fuck Jesus. Then I caught a glimpse of the downed biker's buddy. It was his emotional reaction to his buddy's apparent spinal injury that had got the two women started. He turned away from all of us and found someone more pastorly looking than me to cry in front of.
If you think I started balling too you are dead fucking wrong. I can hold back my tears as good as any one. I had not cried since Sonja tricked me into going to see "The Notebook" one night.
Pretty soon the ambulance, the firemen and the fucking cops were there. Everybody went home except for the injured biker and his buddy. They went to the hospital. One of them is probably still there.
When I got home I walked the dog and I had a few beer. It was after the third one that I let out some tears. I felt quite a bit better after that.
2 comments:
I was at a meeting the other day when a new guy with a stinking hangover flopped out of his chair and started convulsing. There was a young guy there, just back from two tours of Iraq, an Army medic. He got the guy laid out and stabilized while I ran and got a blanket from my car. The medic is a pretty fucked up kid. The government gave him a little dog to hug and pet when he can't handle shit. He didn't need any emergencies but he did what he had to.
Seriously Beer, thanks for being of service.
If there is anybody more fucked up than an old sawmill hand like me, it would be an army medic.
Nice to hear it Jon but I do not need thanks for trying to help out the occasional roadside casualty. I do it because other people have helped me in a similar situation.
Somebody once told me, "Any time I have not helped someone who needed it, it came back to bite me in the ass. Now I do not think twice."
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