My First Ambulance and Airplane Rides
It's been a busy week on the banks of the Big Sioux River. My parents and I visited my brother's family in Custer last weekend for a long weekend, and then came back to the eastern edge of the state Monday. It was an interesting adventure, all-in-all. We took an ambulance to a customer of my cousin, who owns a refurbished ambulance business in Rock Rapids, IA. I rode in the back of the ambulance to Custer, and back to Canton in one that was returning to the shop. This gave me plenty of time to reflect, recalling stories told by my parents and other family of my first ambulance ride.
The tailgate belonged to the pickup of the carpenter who was helping set shape to our newly moved-in house. The nose of the pickup was pointed up the slope in front of the house, and I had been playing in the back of the pickup, probably having jumped down many times. On the last and fateful jump, I went off sideways, moving to my right. The ground was hard packed and dry, and my left foot hit first. My tiny three year old body crumpled like paper, my left femur split in two. A bolt of lightning shot through my leg, and I tried to get up. Once. As the minutes went by, my mother came out of the house and told me to get up, she being of the "if you're going to cry, I'll give you something to cry about" school. She quickly could tell, however, that this wasn't me half crying or faking.
The carpenter helped Mom get me onto a sheet of plywood and into the back of our 1968 Ford sedan and in to Winner Memorial Hospital. I don't recall anything about leaving the house, being at Winner Memorial, or my first ambulance ride as they trucked me to the airport. You see, my fracture was something the doctors call a "green stick fracture." The left femur was broken from the upper left part down and across to the bottom right, the Winner hospital didn't want to, or couldn't deal with the break, and so they drove me to the airport and flew me to Sioux Falls.
The only thing I recall about my first airplane ride is sitting up, looking out, and having Mom say to me, "Just lay down and go back to sleep." Such is a mother's protective love, but I would have rather looked out the window. Such events have become legend for family to replay, but I have to take their word for it. And you know, Ill always have a small complaint about this adventure - I wanted to live it, not sleep through it. But I imagine that out of compassion they gave me enough drugs to daze a rhinocerous, so I'll never be able to tell you what if felt like to ride in an ambulance, or the airplane. Nonetheless, I'm thankful for the care of the doctors and nurses in Winner and Sioux Falls. I'm even more thankful for the many nights my mother stayed in Sioux Valley Hospital with me. And in the end, memories are all the same - just old stories. It's far better to live today than to sit around trying to regain old glories.
The tailgate belonged to the pickup of the carpenter who was helping set shape to our newly moved-in house. The nose of the pickup was pointed up the slope in front of the house, and I had been playing in the back of the pickup, probably having jumped down many times. On the last and fateful jump, I went off sideways, moving to my right. The ground was hard packed and dry, and my left foot hit first. My tiny three year old body crumpled like paper, my left femur split in two. A bolt of lightning shot through my leg, and I tried to get up. Once. As the minutes went by, my mother came out of the house and told me to get up, she being of the "if you're going to cry, I'll give you something to cry about" school. She quickly could tell, however, that this wasn't me half crying or faking.
The carpenter helped Mom get me onto a sheet of plywood and into the back of our 1968 Ford sedan and in to Winner Memorial Hospital. I don't recall anything about leaving the house, being at Winner Memorial, or my first ambulance ride as they trucked me to the airport. You see, my fracture was something the doctors call a "green stick fracture." The left femur was broken from the upper left part down and across to the bottom right, the Winner hospital didn't want to, or couldn't deal with the break, and so they drove me to the airport and flew me to Sioux Falls.
The only thing I recall about my first airplane ride is sitting up, looking out, and having Mom say to me, "Just lay down and go back to sleep." Such is a mother's protective love, but I would have rather looked out the window. Such events have become legend for family to replay, but I have to take their word for it. And you know, Ill always have a small complaint about this adventure - I wanted to live it, not sleep through it. But I imagine that out of compassion they gave me enough drugs to daze a rhinocerous, so I'll never be able to tell you what if felt like to ride in an ambulance, or the airplane. Nonetheless, I'm thankful for the care of the doctors and nurses in Winner and Sioux Falls. I'm even more thankful for the many nights my mother stayed in Sioux Valley Hospital with me. And in the end, memories are all the same - just old stories. It's far better to live today than to sit around trying to regain old glories.
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