Today started out a fairly normal day, although it looked like it was going to
be a fairly relaxing day. I'm on fall break, and had a library book I wanted to
read. I noticed early on that Erick forgot to take his cell phone to work.
Normally when he does that, he runs into some sort of crisis. Today was no
exception.
After lunch, a friend of mine called and asked if I could
watch her two little girls for her. She was starting her first day of work, and
hadn't called ahead to schedule the daycare, and they were full and wouldn't
take them. I told her that would be fine, since I didn't have any plans for the
day other than read my book and later on help with trim in the house.
They were here for probably less than an hour when the phone rang. It
was Erick, and he told me he'd been rear-ended by a van. I thought he was joking
at first--he sounded so calm. He said he needed me to come out there. I wasn't
really sure why--he didn't sound like it was very bad, and I guess I pictured a
dented bumper or something because I figured he could drive himself home.
I sent my older kids over to another friends' house, because with the
kids I was babysitting I didn't have room in the van for all of them. I loaded
up the others, although I didn't bother with things like shoes because I was in
a hurry, and I also didn't think we'd be getting out of the van anyway.
When I arrived at the scene, there were emergency vehicles everywhere,
and the road was blocked off. They were directing traffic around the wreck, and
I could see that the whole back half of the truck was all bent up. It looked a
lot worse than I had expected. I rolled down my window and talked to one of the
men directing traffic and asked him about my husband, and he told me they'd
taken him to the hospital.
While I was sitting in the waiting room at
the emergency room, holding a baby and trying to keep the other three little
ones from tearing up the emergency room, our pastor from the church we attended
all summer came in. News travels fast around here--someone we knew had seen the
wreck and calls had been made. He took care of the little ones for me while I
went back and saw Erick. He had a bandage on his head. The nurse joked that she
used to work for the Taliban, and that he shouldn't get on an airplane. The
glass window behind him in the truck had broken and basically scalped him--took
the skin and the hair off the back of his head. (And this is just two days after
I gave him a haircut!)
A car in front of Erick had stopped suddenly to
turn, and the driver of the van behind him had reached down to get a drink from
his cupholder and hadn't seen Erick stop. After Erick got out of the truck,
bleeding from the back of his head, the emergency workers strapped him to a
gurney and rushed him to the hospital. They picked the glass out of the back of
his head and then let him go. We went to Walmart and picked up the prescriptions
for him, and also met the mother of the girls I was watching and she took them
home.
And on top of that, Abby is sick. She started throwing up soon
after she went to our friends' house and was still throwing up just a few
minutes ago. I'm actually glad that I dropped her off, though, even though I
felt bad for my friend. I don't know what I'd have done if I had a kid puking in
the emergency room on top of everything else.
So that's my interesting
day. It didn't exactly turn out the way I expected!
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