Shall I Phone An Ambulance, Dad?
January 4, 2007 12 Comments
I have a had a few bad experiences,
Seeing Daughter fall most of the way down our stairs, bouncing once, was pretty damn scary. I couldn't stop her – I had my arms full of baby boys and she squirmed past me. But she was only 18 months old and bouncy, so she just cried, a lot, but damaged nothing.
Being forced into the central reservation on the motorway by a very large coach, whilst driving at 90 mph was pretty scary too. Your whole life does not flash before your eyes, but you do start worrying about funerals.
But waking up in Casualty, hearing someone saying Clear and realising Thank God – not me! is perhaps the scariest moment of my life. Specially as I still do not have a memory of how I got there.
Don’t get me wrong. I know how I got there. I have been told by Daughter, and Husband, and Sons 1,2 & 3 how I woke them up. But actual memory, of my own – nada, zilch, nothing.
We have a loft conversion. The staircase rises from the middle landing. It turns, goes straight up the party wall, turns again and becomes a small landing (with a bookcase) before my bedroom door.
But we also have a en-suite (and by god, that is the best thing ever!), so we have two doors, side by side, one leading to the stairs and one leading to the bathroom.
So this night, and I cannot even remember the date, we went to bed. And about 5 o'clock I opened the door to the stairs and fell, top to bottom, and ended up, flat on my back, on the middle landing.
Youngest heard it, and got out of bed. Daughter heard it, and thought I'll get up if it's serious. And Husband heard it, and came rushing to see what the hell the noise was. He says it was the worst moment of his life, seeing me there – I had blood coming from the back of my head, and my wrist, and was moaning. He was scared.
Youngest was pretty scared too, but together enough to ask Dad, shall I phone an ambulance. And when Daughter heard that, and heard her Dad reply Yes, she was out of bed in a flash.
I needed to be held down, apparently – I kept trying to get up and muttering about needing a wee. A wee, for god sakes!
I needed two ambulances and one paramedic car – two crews of two and a crew of one – to get me onto a stretcher, strap me down, and carry me down to the ambulance. 5 men. Made me pretty determined to lose some weight, I can tell you. It took them an hour. And not really because I am the size of a small house. Because to get me down the stairs required the stretcher being carried at an almost vertical angle. Without my falling off.
I think I must have been aware of some of this. I have a very vague memory of the ambulance men asking me questions, but cannot remember what, or if, I replied.
All I know is that waking up in Casualty when the last thing you remember was going to sleep is fucking terrifying.
Did I damage myself? I have a scar on my head where I gashed my scalp in two places, and the skin in-between just died and fell off, leaving a place I do not like to touch. And I have a scar on my wrist where I somehow gouged out a deep hunk of flesh. And I was so, so sore and stiff and achy – I hurt my arse where I must have landed on a stair, so I had a bruise across my backside like the worst cane mark imaginable and as for lifting my arms at all – forget it! I couldn’t even turn over in bed easily for a month!
But I broke nothing, I didn’t damage the staircase either, and two small scars as a reminder = a very lucky escape. Sorry for the pretty naff pics – have you ever tried to photograph the back of your own head! Arms not long enough, eyes can't see round corners…
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