Life Comes At You Fast

So goes the advertising slogan for an insurance company. Well there is some truth in that statement. It has been over a month since I have written. Yesterday morning I was lamenting the fact the I haven't had time to write. Life came at me fast, and I have plenty of time now.

I was doing some work on a roof here in Branson yesterday, which required the use of an extension ladder. I'm no stranger to extension ladders having used them without incident since my teenage years. I got the ladder from my truck, extended it to adequate height to access the roof I needed to work on, placed it against the eave, made sure that it was on level ground, and started climbing. I made it halfway up to the roof before the most bizzare thing happend to me. The fly section of the ladder, the portion which you extend, started going back down with me on it.

Not wanting to get caught in the rungs I pushed myself backwards away from the ladder hoping to land on my feet. I landed on my feet, at which point I discovered a major failing point in my plan of action. The human knee is desinged to bend in one direction, which is not backwards. As my feet hit the ground I thought I was going to be okay, but the velocity of the impact coupled with my body weight changed my initial impresion in about 1/100th of a second. I felt something in the back of my knee "pop", and I fell to the ground rather forcefully.

After hitting the ground the adrenaline was still going, and despite being sprawled out on the ground I thought I would just get up. Plan B failed more spectacullarly than my inital plan of jumping backwards off the ladder. I tried to stand on my injured leg only to have my knee give out from under me causing me to land face down in the dirt. As the adrenaline was wearing off I relaized two things. I was hurt to the point where I was not going to walk away, and I needed help.

Some days God looks out for us. I have a cell phone, but I only get service in a couple parts of town. Needless to say I didn't have service where I was. I had put my EMS radio in my truck instead of leaving it on my desk when I. I crawled over to the passenger side of my truck, where I had left the window down, and pulled myself up. I was able to grab my radio off the dash before falling down for the thrid time. Having some pride, and not wanting to alert the entire county to my predicament, I simply asked my fellow EMT if she could come over to where I was.

Not knowing that I was injured my fellow EMT showed up without her trauma kit, but my trauma kit had made it into the truck along with the radio. She quickly acsertained that my knee was apporximately the size of a canteloupe, and that I probably needed to go to the hospital. Once she had my knee immobilized, and had put a cold pack on it I was albe to pull my self up into the passenger seat of my truck. After being driven home my wife took over the driver's seat for the trip to the hospital in Trinidad.

Several hours later it was determined that I had injured my lateral collater ligament (LCL) and my patellar tendon, but that I had not fractured anything. Barring any meniscal damage I was told that I would be back on my feet in 3-5 days. In the interem I'm stuck with a rigid brace to immobilize my knee, and reduced to getting around on crutches. Despite my injuries God was still looking out for me.

Now as I sit here typing I have to think about how God will work through me in this experience.