School of Hard Knocks

Today was my last big push in the lead-up to Bear.  The middle 25 miles were great what with timely and caring cloud cover.  The last five or six heated up pretty fast once I returned to the valley floor.  I even stopped with three miles left just to dump water over my head.  I mustered my way home, groaned my way through a long shower, enjoyed some watermelon on the stoop.  I began debating if I could stay awake or if I needed a nap.  And then the phone rang.

"Can you meet us on 15?  I cut myself with the chainsaw..." followed by some beeps and the call getting dropped.

Oh boy.

I was out the door in less than a minute, hoping he had his wallet and insurance card on his person.  I was rushing to meet them half way.  Felt bad for the guy enjoying the late afternoon sun on his porch, who now had a huge dusty plumb creeping toward his view. 

Nathan spent the afternoon up in Old Woman Creek cutting wood with our neighbors.  They were very nearly done cutting for the day when he did something (he does not remember what) and noticed a cut in his pants.  As he commented out loud something along the lines of "At least it was just my pant," then came the blood across his knee and down his leg.  They immediately figured it would need some attention and got him toward the truck.  Apparently Nathan was walking like normal, and D told him to not move his leg so he didn't cause more bleeding.  Since Nathan did the calling then it hopefully wasn't too bad, but bodies have their mysterious ways.

I caught them before they ever made it to County Road 15.  Nathan threw a peg leg out of the trunk and hobbled his way down.  No tourniquet.  It clotted on its own, from what others said.  Good sign.  The knee of his Carharts was torn open to avoid further irritation.  He managed to get into the car keeping his leg straight on its own, meaning he didn't sever tendon.  Another good sign.

"Do you think this means I won't get to race next weekend?"

I know I shot him the look, but whatever I muttered escapes me.  Probably better off that way.  There might have been an expletive.  

He continued to comment about the "inconvenience" of not getting to race and having to deal with an ER bill while I serially checked him for signs of shock.  (None to be found, another good sign).

En route to the ER.

After full wash-out and assessment, turns out there were two cuts to the same area.  Measured 6 cm x 1 cm wide and was about 1 cm deep.  Had the bar gone half to a full centimeter deeper then we'd have an orthopedic crises.  Or, had it been while really running the saw and not just during incidental post-cut movements then we might have been sent via hellicopter to Denver with a severed leg.  Lucky, lucky, lucky boy.

I remembered my mom's story about when my dad cut his palm while re-tiling the bathroom, opting to score and break a tile with his hand in lieu of a cutting gizmo.  Apparently when they opened the wound to check for fragments he fainted.  Nathan didn't even flinch or turn pale.  I was glad that after all this he still had his big boy pants on (metaphorically). 

I sat in a chair against the wall while they stitched him up.  He watched the whole thing, probably because it helped him prevent from jumping or twitching.  Not too much pain; he said he could feel everywhere before the Lidocaine, though I wonder if small sensory nerve branches were disrupted.  We shall find out in time.  If so, it will complement the portion of his proximal lateral thigh that lost it's feeling after too many encounters with competing teams' lacrosse sticks.

Eight stitches, prophylactic antibiotics, and a tetanus booster later we were on our way home.  We didn't even try to get his pants back on due to the need to keep the area sterile.  With such a small town and the ER positioned on the back side of the hospital, which is tucked into the side of Lookout Mountain on the far side of town, no one was around to see him walk out in his boxers. 

As stated by our neighbor, Lumberjack School of Hard Knocks.