St. Patrick's Day

Today is St. Patrick's Day. Many of you will be wearing green, thinking of four leaf clovers, maybe have a green beer. You might be looking for gold at the end of the rainbow.

For me, St. Patrick's Day brings to mind windmills. Not the kind used by my ancestors in Holland, not exactly. No, not the kind used to produce energy or pump water. Just your run of the mill 8-foot decorative garden variety windmill.

Three years ago today, March 17, 2004, I was assaulted by my windmill. After assembling the the base and the blade/tail parts of the windmill, I now needed to put them together. Because the windmill stood 8 feet, I had it next to my porch and was standing on the steps. I should also mention that it was a windy day and that the kids were in school and my wife was at work.

Now, I slipped the top portion into the bottom when I noticed that I needed to tighten the collar that goes around the top of the base. As I'm tightening the collar a huge gust of wind blew the tail around and at the same time started the blades rotating. It hit me with enough force to knock me down off my perch.

My ear ringing, I got up with a few choice words. I looked down to see a couple of drops of blood on the ground. Great, the thing cut me. I reached up to my ear and brought my hand back with lots of blood on it. This is not good. I run into the house, through the kitchen to grab a paper towel and hold it to my head as I head for the bathroom to examine my catastrophe.

Looking into the mirror, I pull away the blood soaked paper towel and watch as part of my ear pulls away with the paper towel a little more than it should. Quick assessment, my ear is in bad shape and I need to get to a hospital.

I wet down a wash cloth, grab my keys and head out. My reasoning is that I can drive to the hospital faster than an ambulance can get to me, and I AM FREAKED OUT! On the way I call my wife to tell her I'm driving to the emergency room expecting her to accuse me of crying wolf since I am a bit of a prankster. She believes me and says she'll meet me there.

I get to the hospital with a wash cloth to my head and they look at me like I'm wasting their time. However, when I pull the wash cloth away and they get a look at my ear, they spring into action. The bleeding has mostly stopped, but the ear had a bit of a mangled look to it I'm sure. They check my vitals and state concern that my blood pressure is so high. I tell them that I am freaked out and afraid that I'm going to loose my ear. They assure me that I will be able to keep the ear and get me to calm down.

The rest of the visit was routine other than repeatedly confirming to everyone that I was not working on a large water pumping windmill, but a small decorative one that just got away from me.

The ER doctor was able to sew my ear up and it looks pretty normal other than a couple of extra lines or folds from the scars.

Once you reach a certain age, you feel like you have things in your life under control. Although I was accident prone as a child, I hadn't hurt myself in a very long time. This just goes to show you that anything can happen at any time.

And That's What I Know!