Hurry, hurry, hurry, oops too late…

I was always in a hurry it seemed. Always trying to catch up or do things that should have been done yesterday. My Dad said I always worked like I was killing snakes, I said I had good teachers.

One particular day I was in a big hurry and needed to clean out my pickup so I could load some engine parts. I didn’t want the bed of the pickup all oily and greasy from the parts so I threw in a long piece of scrap card board. I left it hanging over the lowered tailgate about a foot or so. I then hurried into the house to get my middle son to help load some of the heavier parts. I ran back out to the pickup and jumped into the bed and commenced to clean out some of the stuff I had back there.

The first thing I picked up was a heavy piece of metal that was a makeshift trailer hitch. It was pretty heavy so I had grabbed it with both hands and needed to get some momentum to throw it away from the end of the pickup. I took a step to help throw it and stepped on the cardboard that I had left hanging over the tailgate. I stepped too far and all my weight going forward was met by nothing but cardboard with air underneath and not a metal tailgate. I fell flat on the hard September ground with my wallet in my left front pocket of my Levi’s. The wallet broke my fall also my hip.

The next thing I was aware of was that there was someone yelling and it seemed they were at a great distance away. Finally I realized that was me yelling, I wasn’t quite knocked out from the pain but almost. My 17 year old was also yelling, “Dad, Dad can I help you?” When the fallen warrior could speak he uttered, “No Damnit just leave me the Hell alone for a minute..” Nice guy.. I finally rolled over and when I could breathe a little I told my son to go get a lawn chair and maybe I could get into it. He did so and I managed to crawl up into the chair.

This is when my sweet wife came home. She immediately rushed over and asked what was going on? I think my son related the story and she said we will call the ambulance. The victim said promptly, “No you won’t because they will charge 500 dollars to come to Gildford and back to Havre.” Then the injured party said,” Just leave me be and I will go into the house and take a shower and I will be fine.” My sweet bride who never gets too upset or never says a bad word about anyone looked at my son in exasperation and said,

The injured party decided he best go the hospital after that statement and compromised on riding in the exasperated party’s mini van to the hospital.

When these two hardy souls reached the hospital the woman doctor who was on duty in the emergency room asked the injured one what he did. He explained he fell out of the back of a pickup and broke his hip. The wise woman doctor told him you don’t break your hip falling out of a pickup only 2 feet down. She in her great knowledge said she would xray the said hip to see what was going on. When she returned she stated, “Mr. Crites you broke your hip!!” The injured party said politely, “Tell me something I don’t know, Honey.”

Moral to the story Slow the Hell down…