The Rankin Zoo 

Okay, here’s the story of how I smashed up my face.

My brother is moving and asked me to help. We were working on loading the truck for a second time. I had just secured some furniture with bungee cords. I was walking to the back of the truck, looking for the next thing to load up. At about that time, my nephew David hopped in the truck to help out. All of the sudden there was a bang (I guess, I’m not sure I heard it) and I had a searing pain under my left eye. At first I thought David had thrown something at me and whacked me in the face - wouldn’t have been the first time. I was actually starting to turn to him to yell at him when I realized that whatever hit me in the face hit me a lot harder than David could have.

At about that time I realized that it really, really hurt. I might have started to suspect the bungee cord but I’m not sure. Somehow I hopped out the back of the truck with my left hand up to my face over my left eye. I looked down to see blood pouring into my right hand. I that point I started saying (or maybe yelling), “I need some help.” I think everyone got to me fairly quickly and my older brother (Tim) was right in front of me. I looked up and moved my left hand away and asked him if my eye looked okay. At about the time he was saying that it looked fine I realized I was able to see out of the eye so that made me feel better.

That was also when I saw Coral standing in Brian’s front yard looking at me. I’m sure it was scary for her so I asked people to get Coral away so she couldn’t see me bleeding. I also asked for a towel and contemplated taking off my shirt to jam up against my face. Tim told me to put some pressure on it with my hand but I wasn’t too into that idea - but about then someone handed me a wad of paper towel. I put some quick pressure on it and then pulled it away for Tim to look at and he said it didn’t look too bad. Well, bad enough that I should go to the hospital but not so bad that I should be too worried about it.

At that point I actually called B to let her know what was up (I was supposed to drive Coral over to the pool soon to meet up with B and friends). Tim’s wife, Andrea, offered to drive me to the ER so we were heading to the car. Before I got in I took a quick look in the truck mirror to see the wound for myself - it didn’t look too bad.

It only took about 5-10 minutes to get to the ER and the bleeding had mostly stopped well before we got there. I started wishing someone had hooked me up with some ice but overall it wasn’t all that bad.

At the ER they got me through triage pretty quickly but then I had to wait about 1.5 hours before getting a room. Actually, they were out of rooms so I got to sit on a bed in a hallway. There was some excitement in the room next to my hallway that involved a patient, police, and hospital security folks - but that’s a story for a different time.

After a while they took me back for a CT scan - the same machine that they had run Pearl through a few weeks ago. The tech said it would take about 30 minutes before the radiologist looked at it but that it looked good to her. A while later, back in my hallway, the doctor (actually a physician’s assistant) told me the CT results were fine - no broken bones.

More waiting and then the PA came and washed the wound and decided I needed a couple of stitches. Still more waiting before she came back and gave me the two stitches. Still more waiting before I decided to leave without getting my official discharge instructions (she had already told me what to do - it was just taking a while for her to close out my file). Of course the checkout person didn’t care - as long as I was willing to pay her the $100 co-pay she was fine with me leaving.

So, there you have it. I’m lucky my eye isn’t busted. I’m unlucky that I got hit in the face in the first place. I’m lucky I got out of the rest of helping Brian move. I’m unlucky that I didn’t get to spend the afternoon at the pool with my family. Overall, not my first choice for how to spend a Saturday but I can’t complain too much.