Things Can Go Wrong

One night, about thirty years ago I was working at a large machine lath at my job. I was machining 300 pound iron casting. Part of my job was to put a large clamp on the casting while it was laying on the floor. I would then hook a crane onto the clamp that would lift it up about chest high to put it on the lath machine. Just as I got this casting up to put it on the machine, a man across the isle from me who was running another machine yelled over at me to ask me a question. As I turned to look at him the clamp came off of the casting and came crashing down on top of my foot. I dropped to the floor and quickly took off my boot because I knew my foot would swell up. I was sure that my foot was busted.

My boss had one of the other men take me to the hospital. I waited awhile in the emergency room before a nurse finally came to clean the blood off of my foot and wrap it up with a bandage. She told me to go on home since there wasn't anyone there that could fix me up. I called home and Ruth came to get me and take me home. The next morning Ruth took me to the doctor. At the doctor's my foot was x-rayed. The results were that my foot was smashed and broken. A cast was put on my foot that went all the way up to my knee. The doctor gave me a pair of crutches and said to go home. He told me he would check me again in six weeks.

For a couple of weeks I just sat in my recliner with my foot up. I was getting tired of just sitting. I had crutches and I could drive my car without using my bad left foot. Ruth and I decided to go visit Ruth's son and his family in Indianapolis, Indiana. We spent a few days with them and then decided to go back home. On the way back home to Pennsylvania, we ran into a bad snow storm. It snowed all the way back home. After we got home we decided to go south to get out of the snow. We packed up some clean clothes, and headed south towards Virginia Beach to visit Judy and David. By the time we got there, I was very sick. I thought I was going to die. We went to a hotel and got a room. We called Judy and David. David's mother was living with them at the time and she was a Registered Nurse. She brought her blood pressure kit over and took my blood pressure. It was sky high. Grace was able to get some blood pressure medication for me. I took it for a few of days and just stayed in bed at the hotel until my blood pressure came down enough for me to drive back home. As soon as I got home I went to my doctor and got my blood pressure back under control.

After six weeks the hospital doctor took off my cast and checked my foot. He put on a small cast and told me not to go back to work yet. The company I worked for was very unhappy about that, so they sent me to the company doctor to check my foot for a second opinion. He said the same thing.
The company wanted to get me off their insurance claim, so they talked me into going back to work anyway. They had me working in the tool room handing out tools to anyone that needed them. I was able to sit down whenever there was a chance. After a while I was able to go back to my regular machine job again.

The moral of the story is, when you are in a dangerous situation, don't get distracted by other things or people around you.
Dad