An unfortunate accident

I told him to move it.

The picture below is a drum aerator. To give you an idea of scale, the spikes are two inches long. One fills the drum with water (for weight) and drags it over grass to punch holes in the sod. The holes not only provide air to the roots of the grass (hence the name “aerator”) but also facilitate the movement of water into the soil when it rains.

Drum aerator

Terry bought this drum aerator last spring and put it on the lawn next to the tractor shed. His idea was that he could use it to take out the ridges left behind when we cancelled our contract with the rental farmer at the end of a corn year. I was not opposed to paying the farmer to disc the soil. Terry was. Before we could fully discuss it, the moment had passed, and we were stuck with 18 acres of ridges.

I may have mentioned that I took over the lawn mowing this summer. And every week I had to mow around that drum aerator. “Can’t you put that somewhere else?” I asked.

I don’t remember exactly what he said, but the answer was, in essence, no. And there it sat.

Last Saturday, we got home very late from a wedding. Somehow, as if by magic, I have passed from “friend of the bride” to “friend of the bride’s mother.” It was a lovely wedding. We had good food, good wine, and good conversations. It was way past bedtime when we pulled into the driveway. Terry got out of the car to close up the polyhouse. I put the car in the garage and went downstairs through the house, intent upon a much needed trip to the bathroom (it was a long drive home) and getting out of my dress and into to bed as soon as possible.

I had just gotten a light on when I heard Terry say, “I’m in trouble.” In the darkness, he had gone tail over teacup on the drum aerator. He noticed that his pants were wet below the knee when he got up. At first he thought it was dew. As the pants got wetter and wetter, it dawned on him that it was blood. By the time I saw him, his pants had streaks of red from knee to ankle on both sides. He dropped trou, and I said, “That’s gonna need stitches.”

He had a triangular gash on the outside of his right knee and a long straight cut on his left calf. I quickly ransacked the bathroom for a roll of gauze. No such luck. At Terry’s suggestion (and not having the stereotypic petticoat), I cut a flour sack towel into strips, bound up the wounds and secured the cloth with duct tape.

I took time to go to the bathroom but not to change into something more comfortable. And off we went to the emergency room in Harvard. I dropped Terry at the door and drove around to park the car. By the time I got back to the front desk, a nurse was waiting to take Terry back to a room. “You do the paperwork,” Terry said, and he followed the nurse back.

“I told him to move it,” I said to the receptionist and the security guard.

“That was the first thing he said,” the receptionist replied. “’My wife told me to move it.’ Now, what did he trip over?”

“A soil aerator,” I answered.

The receptionist eyed me suspiciously, hands poised over the keyboard.

“A-E-R-A-T….” Hmmm. O or E? It’s midnight. It doesn’t matter. Just pick one. “E-R.”

I gave her my insurance card and the rest of the information. She directed me back to the emergency department where Terry was on a gurney with his bare legs sticking out from underneath a sheet. A nurse was at a computer typing in his vitals and chatting with Terry about the accident.

I said, “I just had to spell ‘aerator’ to the receptionist.”

“I just put down ‘farm equipment,’” the nurse replied. That seemed like a good idea.

“I told him to move it,” I added.

“Yeah, that’s what he said.”

We waited. Terry’s legs had stopped bleeding. Another nurse, Bruce, came in with bottles of sterile water, which he put on the counter by the sink. A 12-year-old doctor came in next to examine the wounds. I could see from his security badge that his first name was Benjamin and his last name started with S. Dr. Ben asked, “What did you trip over?”

“A drum aerator.” Terry said. He started to explain and then said, “I can draw it for you if you get me a piece of paper.”

Dr. Ben got a paper towel from the dispenser and handed it to Terry with the pen from his pocket. Terry produced a remarkably accurate rendition along with an explanation of how and why it was used.

“And now you probably want one,” I said to the doctor.

“In Chicago? I don’t think so.”

I expressed my surprise and sympathy for his commute.

Dr. Ben continued his information gathering. “And was this aerator dirty?”

“Well,” Terry said, “it had never been used.”

“But we hadn’t sterilized it lately,” I added with a giggle.

Dr. Ben instructed Bruce to clean the wound and went out to check on a man who had just been admitted. Bruce began by taking off Terry’s blood-stained socks which, after a brief discussion, we elected to just throw away. Bruce filled a squirt bottle with the sterile water from one of the bottles and put a collection pan under Terry’s leg. The nozzle had a cup on it to catch the spray as Bruce squirted the injury. So clever. To my immense relief, Bruce cleaned up Terry’s legs also. I totally did not want to have to do that when we got home.

It had apparently been quite the night for leg lacerations. Dr. Ben hadn’t done much but stitch people up. There was a bit of a scramble to find enough lidocaine to anesthetize both cuts. The doctor gave Terry several injections on both legs and left us to wait while the lidocaine worked its magic. After 20 minutes or so, he came back and started sewing. I was positioned on Terry’s right side, which was the more complicated cut. Dr. Ben started by securing the apex of the triangle, then one stitch in the middle of each side, and finally filling in the gaps for 16 stitches in all. He moved around to the other side and put 15 stitches in the straight cut.

“That’s 60 stitches I’ve done tonight,” he said, adding it up. And over half of those were in Terry, I thought. He gets the prize.

Dr. Ben and Bruce wrapped and wrapped. The right knee got burn dressing, its thick padding helping to immobilize the knee. Both wounds got a final wrap of Ace bandages held in place with Velcro strips on both ends. The original dressing was to stay on for three days. Dr. Ben said the stitches could come out in 7 to 10 days. He gave Terry one dose of antibiotic and a prescription for another 5 days. When he was out of the room, Bruce (who seemed much the wiser and more experienced of the two) said that it wouldn’t hurt to leave the stitches in for 14 days, give the location on the knee. Bruce suggested eating more protein to help with the healing.

“I’ll make you a roast on Monday,” I said to Terry. I had been planning that anyway.

“I wish my wife would make me a roast,” Bruce said wistfully. “She doesn’t eat meat.”

And we were home by 2:00 a.m. A very late night indeed.

The next day, we discovered that Terry’s pants had only a tiny hole in the left leg. That was some pretty robust fabric! I put his pants to soak in OxyClean. I don’t suppose there’s a woman in the world who hasn’t figured out how to get blood stains out of fabric. It is interesting to note that when I say that to a woman, she gets it immediately. I had to explain it to Terry. Anyway, the pants came clean. Terry has worn them three times since.

As the days passed, I became completely convinced that Terry has no nerve endings in his legs. He never had any pain. It was, as I expected, rather a struggle to keep him from charging right back into work. He didn’t even keep bandaging on after 5 days. Most of the rolls of gauze and pads that I bought when I got his prescription filled the next day are still sitting on a table. At least we’ll have them for next time we have a first aid emergency. I fully expected him to want the stitches out in a week, but he has decided to go in Tuesday. If it isn’t time, I’m sure they will tell him so.

And as soon as he’s all better, he’s going to move the drum aerator.