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Thursday, October 22, 2009

JJ: Piercings 2

We cleaned a lot of the ancient straw and pigeon leavings out of the old barn that fall, tossing most of it out of the loft onto a compost heap on the north end. This was a dirty, thankless and slightly hazardous job as the old loft flooring had a few weak spots. We enlisted a friend, Anita, and her three kids to help with the job and then I found other things to putter at since I am allergic to dust, pitchforks and hard work, all of which cause me to break out in a sweat. I was pretty engrossed in whatever it was I was tinkering on when I noticed a lot of loud and frantic activity out by the barn. When it finally dawned on me that somebody was hurt I dropped what I was doing and ran over. I found Susan (the horse trainer), Anita, and Anita's kids in the loft gathered around Bec, who was sitting on the floor crying. She had a pitchfork tine through her arm. The kids had taken a break, and Aaron, Anita's oldest boy, was getting up with his pitchfork when Bec jumped down from the window ledge she'd been sitting on and landed beside him. She knew she'd hit her arm on his fork as she landed but thought the arm had gone between the tines till she saw Aaron's face. Her forearm had landed squarely on a tine about midway between wrist and elbow, and about six inches of it was poking out of the top of her arm. She grabbed her arm and dropped to the floor, afraid that the fork would tear out, and the other kids hit the panic button and started jumping and screaming for help. Considering the state of the floor, it was a minor miracle that no one fell through and created a second casualty. It was a clean wound, penetrating without tearing. With her usual impeccable good taste, Bec had landed on the only brand new pitch fork we owned, the others being old and rusty. Susan and I got down with her, and I pulled the tine out of her arm as Susan braced the arm from the bottom and tried to keep the skin from ripping as the tine came out. When it was out and Susan was looking at the wound, I realized Aaron was sitting beside me, white as flour and shaking like an aspen in a breeze. When I put my arm around him he collapsed, crying and apologizing. I told him that accidents happened and it wasn't his fault and then held him while he cried himself out. When we talked about this later, he told me that "I just knew I was in the biggest trouble of my whole life!" It all ended well, with Bec cracking jokes on the way to the house for first aid, getting a tetanus shot the next day and then using her wounded arm to freak out the preppie girls at school. Tough kid, my daughter. I was -- and am -- quite proud of her. PS: Please note that in those days my daughter answered to the name "Becky" but in later years I got much grief for calling her that. She prefers being called "Bec." Right, Becky? :) TBC (Me)

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

A good post on The Whines of a Crochety Bookman
I did come across a websitehttp://www.gotoaid.com/. It’s has all information on first aid emergencies. It has information on Human emergencies and even for pets like cat or dog. Hope it help you guys too.


Signature: Online First Aid Kit

 
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