[The upfront fair warning: this is one of those minimally fishy, musing about life posts that sneak onto Chi Wulff now and again. If you’re looking for the fly fishing clown blowing literary fly fishing bubbles out his (or her) wazoo, look elsewhere today.]
A few days ago found me in my aging F150 roasting at a stop light in the far northern reaches of the DFW metroplex.
It was 104, traffic was humming by. I was sitting in the far right lane of the two intersecting six-lane roadways with one vehicle ahead, impatiently waiting for the green and trying to find the best oldies station in town, thinking how I should have showered that morning.
While I fiddled with the radio a mother and her lovely 16 year-old daughter, traveling the opposite direction on my same roadway were cleared to make a left hand turn on a green arrow; they were driving the family minivan and headed to spend an afternoon school shopping.
At that very moment a beat-to-hell bobtail truck carrying a load of bricks ran the red light at what was later estimated to be over 60 mph and T-boned the minivan. I felt as much as heard the impact and looked up to see the now airborne minivan tumble across the hood of the car in front of me and spin up into the buffering green space of a gas station sitting right beside us, amazingly landing upright.
It is genuinely true that time slows to a crawl during an event like this. In the flash that the minivan tumbled by in the air I recall thinking ‘this is going to be a bad one’. Pushed by instinct more than rational thought I shut down my rig and was headed toward the minivan before all the debris stopped sliding in the street.
(Though I no longer do so, in a prior life I practiced medicine, and there are still times that training kicks in and overpowers the thinking part of one’s brain.)
The minivan had been shorn nearly in half from the right front quarter impact; most of the body metal had been stripped off. Both were unconscious, Mom was pinned by the displaced motor with obvious severe leg wounds. The daughter was pinned in by the crushed door and side frame, though I could see her chest, neck and head.
Just like in the movies, a pulsating fountain of blood was spraying from a deep open wound along her upper chest; there was a gym bag within reach and I pulled out a shirt and applied direct pressure to try and stem the flow.
In retrospect it was apparently only 3 minutes before the first EMS team arrived (the station was less than a mile away); one of the incredibly talented EMTs crawled in over the engine compartment and was able to place a large-bore IV to begin fluid support.
After writing, deleting and rewriting several times, it’s probably best to simply say that despite the best efforts of a very talented emergency response team and one aging, fat-guy fly fisher, a beautiful high-school sophomore-to-be bled out and died that afternoon on a hot, dusty street in Texas.
You’re Only a Breath Away
One of the EMTs offered to help me get cleaned up a bit and there were statements to give to the state troopers and local police. I stumbled back to our hotel (scaring the hell out of a maid in the hallway who must have assumed I was an axe murderer coming in to clean up), and couldn’t get a voice from the past out of my mind.
One of my best high school friends later attended a church while we were all in college whose pastor loved to say “we’re all just a breath away from eternity”. It didn’t necessarily have a lot of impact back in those days; when you’re 22 you really do feel invincible.
That day last week though, despite years in medicine aiding the sick and at times dying, I simply felt undone at what I’d seen and touched that day.
So My Friend, Seize the Day
Recognizing the risk of sounding glib, and once again grasping the physiological reality that we’re all ‘a breath away from eternity’, I’d humbly offer a suggestion that many of us need to change some things in our lives. I’m thinking in particular of dads and moms here.
These days are busy; life is stressful, school is starting, summer’s end isn’t far off, the political circus is cranking up. Distractions abound. (There are even noble fishing related things to be done – dams to take down, species and waterways to save.) It’s so damn easy to say / think “I’ll do better tomorrow with the family; if I can just get __________ done we can spend some quality time together.”
Don’t wait. Turn off the TV. Put down the phone. Interact. Do something unexpected and fun.
Better yet, take ‘em fishing.
There’s at least one father who wishes more than anything in the world he could do that today.
