I talked to our member, Rusty, a couple of days ago and he told me he had been in a bad vehicle accident. Tonight he called me back and we had a long talk. He is OK but has been having a bad time.
On Mother’s Day, He had headed west to purchase some “dead-head” cypress he had made arrangements for a couple of weeks before. He likes Red Pike and had decided to do some fishing for them before-hand because the water was “right.”.
After fishing, he was headed back to Lake City, Fl. to get on I-10 and pick up his wood. He had a nice mess of fish in the truck and was enjoying the ride, when out of the corner of his eye he saw something brown dart out into the road. Doing something he rarely does, he swerved to miss it and went off of the side of the road.
That was no big shakes, he just rode the shoulder a ways and pulled back up on the road. Everything was fine when it felt like something was pushing the truck. He was hauling a trailer to carry the wood on and figured that it must have gotten crossed up behind him or didn’t get back on the road with the truck. All of a sudden he couldn’t steer the truck.
He woke up in the ditch with a broken arm, couldn’t breath and someone over him telling him to lay still, don’t move.
A helicopter showed up and took him to Shands Teaching Hospital in Jacksonvlle where he remained in ICU for 3 weeks. Two more weeks in a Therapy hospital and now he’s been home for a couple of weeks. Things didn’t go well in the hospital and he was in a morphine induced coma for most of the time. His arm was fixed with a metal rod. All of his ribs were broken. One lung was punctured and the other “went down” while he was in the hospital. He suffered from pneumonia and a brain concussion that has left him with poor eyesight. Hopefully that will correct itself.
He is in good spirits and looking to get out and about as soon as he can see and quit hurting. His concern, as we hung up, was to call Fla.-Deadheader and make arrangements for some logs that he bought last year and never picked up.
He said to tell everybody “Hi” and he wants to visit the forum again when he can see the screen. (I told him about making the text bigger)
In the back of his truck was a Marine survival knife that he has kept there for years. It was razor sharp. His friend, who showed up at the accident minutes behind its happening to pick up Rusty’s tools, found the knife imbedded 3 inches in a pine tree and twenty feet off of the ground. A blade for his 16-inch timber saw was ¾ buried in the ground. They finally found his cell phone buried 2 feet in the ditch. They had someone from town calling it and could hear it ring but never thought it would be that deep.
Rusty will be OK. Perhaps he will be the worse for wear, but, he broke his truck.
