I'm your mailman baby!

As promised, I deliver!

I said I would tell you about #16 on the why I'm all that and a bag o chips post! It reads "Picked up the van that crushed my leg and pinned me down after I chopped up my arm with an axe."

So, here's the skinny:

We were loaded up in the good old Escort, headed for the mountains for a family camping trip with the WHOLE fam damily. We were caravaning with Kim and Darin and their kids. Kim and Darin got a flat right at the point of the mountain. They didn't know they had a flat (this was before the cool little light that tells you your tire pressure is low). We told them they had a flat by playing a freeway charades game, well, not really a game, but you get the idea. (This was also before we had a cell phone) They pulled off to the side of the road. We did too. So the guys proceeded in taking off the old tire to put the spare on.

You know how some cars have the spare under the vehicle? Well, that's where their spare was.

So, their van was jacked up (literally) and the flat tire was off, and Darin was under the van trying to get the spare off. It wasn't coming off for anything.

I don't know who's bright idea it was to get a newly sharpened ax to try to pry off the spare, but someone did. It wasn't budging for Darin, so Jason thought he had a better way of getting it off. So Darin gets out from under neath, and Jason goes under. His head, and all of the upper part of his body were under the van while he tugged and pried, and pulled trying to get that stupid spare off! (Jason is very strong. He wouldn't tell anyone this but he is. He has very very strong arms and hands. One time, he bear-hugged our 4 1/2 feet tall maple dresser full of clothes and moved it from our bedroom to the kitchen). So, I don't know what happened first. The spare finally breaking free, OR the van (full of kids and camping gear) falling off the jack and onto Jason, the ax and Jason's arm; but the end result was that my husband was pinned under the van and the ax had cut his arm pretty severely. He was losing quite a bit of blood. And he couldn't get out from under because the van was literally on top of his thigh.

You know how on the shoulder of the freeway, allot of times, it slants off? Well, Kim thought that the van was going to roll off the shoulder and down the embankment with her kids inside, so she started pushing the van away from the shoulder with all her might. I can't remember where Darin was, I'm sure he was trying to help in some way, but I don't remember. I could tell that the van wasn't going to be rolling anywhere, it wasn't even close, but from where Kim was standing it looked like it was.

I knew that if we were going to get my husband out from under the van, we needed to lift it up and off of him. I remember frantically trying to make eye contact with the drivers passing by, trying to get them to see that we needed help, but I'm sure to people driving by, it looked like we had things under control. After all, there were 2 men, 2 cars, 2 wives, etc, so of course, no one stopped.

I went to the corner of the van and lifted up thinking that this wasn't going to do anything, but I couldn't just stand there and let my husband be pinned under that van. All of the sudden, he slid out. Miraculously, he could walk. Remember how the van was on top of his thigh and the van was full of kids and gear?

Once out and standing, Jason ripped his shirt off and wrapped it around his arm to try to slow the bleeding a bit. Then the two of us had no choice but to leave Darin and Kim and the van and kids, stuck on the side of the road. We had to find a hospital. But there were just a couple more problems. #1 We had no idea where the nearest hospital was. #2 Our car was so weighed down with gear, that we couldn't even go the speed limit without the car fishtailing all over the road.

I found the closest exit. Thankfully it had a gas station right off the road. When I went inside, it was very busy. There was a really long line at the cash register. I didn't want to cut in line, but I wasn't trying to buy a coke, I needed to get to a hospital. So, I said, very loudly, so everyone in the gas station could hear me over the hustle and bustle "I need to find a hospital now!" The clerk gave me a series of go here and turn left, go there and turn right kind of things (but remember, I don't know my way around this town) I must have had a very discouraged look on my face. This sweet girl in her early 20's told me I could follow her up to the hospital. And so I did.

The cut on his arm was huge. It was about 3 inches long and at least a 1/2 inch deep. You could see all this red fleshy stuff inside. It was scary and gross. Once at the hospital, they admitted Jason right away. After what seemed like hours later, the doctor came out and told us that the ax had missed his tendons, and because the ax was just barely sharpened, the cut was very clean and straight, making it much easier to stitch and finally to heal.

So that's my story... and I'm sticking to it!

Today's songs:

Had a Bad Day by Daniel Powter (cause that was kind of a bad day)

Better by Regina Spektor (for 2 reasons. 1 it's Jason's favorite Regina song, and 2- cause sometimes a kiss can make it better, but sometimes, you need a Perkaset)