… and if I could walk on water, I wouldn’t be writing this. Often the notion of life can change in an instant is merely an intellectual exercise and on occasion ones life does change in an instant.
Last Wednesday night I was walking to my car, after finishing work, across the Ellipse when I skidded a bit on the ice glazed sidewalk. I wondered why the lights were not lit on the National Christmas Tree and why no one had de-iced the sidewalk? In the twenty years I have walked this path to where I park my car on E Street, I can only remember two instances when the sidewalk had not been de-iced/sanded. Deciding it might be safer if I could hold onto the fence as I walked, I took one step towards the fencing and completely lost my footing. I landed squarely on the top of my back, then my head hit the concrete and bounced down again.
I “had the wind knocked out of me” and it was a few minutes before I was able to try and call for help. At first no one responded, which was not too surprising as the Ellipse is across the street from the South Lawn of The White House. Although heavily guarded- their instructions probably include NOT responding to people moaning like a wounded animal on the ground.
There usually aren’t many people walking on the Ellipse around midnight in the wintertime. About once a year, I see Jerry who used to work at the Restaurant and now works at the Willard Inter- Continental, walking on the Ellipse. By co-incidence or miracle it was Jerry who found me, my glasses and a policeman who was an EMT. My plan was to have someone help me stand up and walk to my car. Their plan was to call an ambulance. Thankfully Jerry stayed with me for the next half hour or so, tried to warm me up and held my hand.
After about five hours in the ER, I was wheeled into another room. By then I had had a Ct scan to my head and neck, two shots for pain and a set of X-rays taken. I joked with my Nurse, Craig, that now I would be on the fast track to discharge, as this side of the ER must contain the rooms designated for those ready to go home? Another person came in to tell me that soon he would remove the huge cervical collar that was beginning to cut into my skin. He indicated that he would be back with something softer.
Then another Doctor came into the room and told me- “DO NOT MOVE…you have broken your back!” Before I could say anything he swished the curtain closed and left…
