The only thing I could feel was fear. I vaguely remember a short boat ride across the river from where the big bummer took place. From there it was a quick Medi-Flight ride above Sacramento to the hospital. A handful of firefighters and paramedics shot me out of the back of the ambulance like a wave breaking on the asphalt. Then the excitement began. My fear started to grow as the paramedics and doctors and nurses continually had little private conversations and powwows, obviously discussing the extent of the visible damage that I’d done to myself. I looked on. No, that wasn’t possible. I couldn’t turn to look because my neck was immobilized by a couple of blocks of big yellow foam. So I listened. It was so chaotic that trying to eavesdrop on these people was near impossible. I guess that a conversation would probably have to wait.

The whole furball of activity really seemed surreal because you seldom see this kind of thing outside of a TV episode. People were barking orders insisting on bags of this and tubes of that, sprinkled with short breaks of the murmuring powwows. I remember thinking, as people hung over my head looking down at me, that their startled looks began to mirror how I felt. My line of sight became a camera’s point of view looking up from the ground in a football huddle of medical personnel. It was the same thing you see on ER, the little pen lights shining in my eyes along with questions being shouted at me. (more…)