- Joined
- Nov 29, 2000
- Messages
- 2,869
First of all...Happy Thanksgiving! Today things are going much better but last night, not so...Wednesday, we had a single Thanksgiving service between our two local Luteran Churches. I went to sing in the "communal choir" and then was out the door rushing home to make (to them anyway) my famous homeade pizza for my two children and their two friends over for the eve... blowing off the pie social after service. As I came into my driveway, here's what I saw.
http://www.flex.net/~mitchwilkins/homepage/page9.htm
I parked in what was left of my driveway, room wise, and entered the surreal scene of an almost demolished, flaming vehicle in the middle of my driveway where my two kids and their friends had set up a triage complete with a pillow and blanket for the 26 year old lying there on the concrete.
Ten minutes earlier, the kids (in the house playing games) heard a loud ka-boom! About the time I must have been leaving the Church not five miles to the north, headed for home, uhm... and pizza duty.
My daughter and her friend Amy bolted out of the house first ( yes that's a truck on top of my truck in MY DRIVEWAY not 20 feet from my front door) to witness the scene of this guy, nearly upside down in a smoldering vehicle and hung up in his seatbelt screaming bloody murder that he's hurt. My daughter Raven and her friend, immediately ran inside and made the 911 call. We live on a rural two lane black top with no shoulder; out in the middle of nowhere. No super quick help for us here, usually. Now, as all four kids run back out the front door they find that the truck is on fire (electrical) and filling with smoke and small red flames are coming from the vent foreward of the windshield. A matter of just a few minutes from playing games to a flamming truck... 20 feet from your front door. My son is 18; my daughter 14. There's no "real" adult in the house.
Amy, my daughter's best bud, ran back in the house and (fortunately) grabbed one of the little kitchen knives lying on the kitchen table(http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=374297 ) I had just completed as Christmas gifts (the smallest one with the Mesquite scales) and the two of them ran back out to the truck, (all of a hundred feet...) cut the man's seat belt loose, and the two of them drug him out of the truck to safty. A good thing. The cab was now completely filled with acrid electically associated smoke and would have asphixiated anyone left inside not to mention real flames are present. My son Chris, his friend Ray and a neighbor manned the gardenhose and were trying unsucessfully to put out the flames. Because the young man was yelling for his friends, my neighbor was braving the smoke to feel about for additional survivors; there was no one else in the truck. The young man was delerious. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I'm casually driving home whistleing along with the radio... to a Mozart tune.
I arrived about eight to ten minutes after the wreck to a scene right out of Iraq: it looked like a car bomb had gone off in my driveway. A body lying on the concrete screaming bloody murder, a truck on fire, people coming out of the woodwork milling about and pieces of truck everywhere! When our RFD and a county constable showed up (a good five minutes later which is remarkably quick) with a 2.5 in. water hose, out went the fire.
The guy had been drinking whiskey, had a loaded 12 ga. in the front seat with one in the chamber and a pocket full of cash. DPS (Department of Public Safty) was not pleased, said he was doing at least 65 mph. when he skidded sideways and broadsided my concete culvert. If I had come home just a few minutes early, he'd have nuked my Suburban and ME!! As it was, he hit, flipped once, caught the 30 inch pine tree out front of my driveway in mid-air, spun around and landed almost upside down and resting on my pickup. He hit so hard, he literally snapped off a front tire assembly,wheel, hub, tire and all, which came apart in hugh schrapnel chunks that went flying all over my property. Had you be standing within 20 feet of were he came to rest, you'd have been injured: like a NASCAR wreck on tv !!
A good hour and a half later back in the house, after the fifteen or so police and emergency vehicles not to mention the weeckers were gone, I asked Amy what she'd done with the knife. " It's out on the driveway somwere, I dropped it when we needed both hands to pull'em out". Sure enough, I went back outside with the flashlight and found my little knife in a mound of halon fire extinguisher foam and burnt debris. A little discolored but just fine other than that.
Even after all this, the kids are still expecting pizza!!! So, I oblidge; it's past ten by now. As I'm picking glass out of the bottom of my daughter's feet, (they did all this without shoes on) Amy recounts the evening's events; "I thought I would have to like, ... saw through the seat belt but I cut through it like butter". Out of the mouth of babes: at least I know how to make things sharp and here's a shining example of a little blade up for a critical job when called upon, even in the hands of a novice.
But hey, all that aside lets hear it for my teenage first responders!, I'm proud of them; they did just great! I'm glad today though has been less eventful....
(that's my responders in the last two pix...! Amy is the short girl in the green T-shirt, Chirs, my son is the tall one with a gotee', and Raven my daughter is the one with long red hair.)
regards, mitch
http://www.flex.net/~mitchwilkins/homepage/page9.htm
I parked in what was left of my driveway, room wise, and entered the surreal scene of an almost demolished, flaming vehicle in the middle of my driveway where my two kids and their friends had set up a triage complete with a pillow and blanket for the 26 year old lying there on the concrete.
Ten minutes earlier, the kids (in the house playing games) heard a loud ka-boom! About the time I must have been leaving the Church not five miles to the north, headed for home, uhm... and pizza duty.
My daughter and her friend Amy bolted out of the house first ( yes that's a truck on top of my truck in MY DRIVEWAY not 20 feet from my front door) to witness the scene of this guy, nearly upside down in a smoldering vehicle and hung up in his seatbelt screaming bloody murder that he's hurt. My daughter Raven and her friend, immediately ran inside and made the 911 call. We live on a rural two lane black top with no shoulder; out in the middle of nowhere. No super quick help for us here, usually. Now, as all four kids run back out the front door they find that the truck is on fire (electrical) and filling with smoke and small red flames are coming from the vent foreward of the windshield. A matter of just a few minutes from playing games to a flamming truck... 20 feet from your front door. My son is 18; my daughter 14. There's no "real" adult in the house.
Amy, my daughter's best bud, ran back in the house and (fortunately) grabbed one of the little kitchen knives lying on the kitchen table(http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=374297 ) I had just completed as Christmas gifts (the smallest one with the Mesquite scales) and the two of them ran back out to the truck, (all of a hundred feet...) cut the man's seat belt loose, and the two of them drug him out of the truck to safty. A good thing. The cab was now completely filled with acrid electically associated smoke and would have asphixiated anyone left inside not to mention real flames are present. My son Chris, his friend Ray and a neighbor manned the gardenhose and were trying unsucessfully to put out the flames. Because the young man was yelling for his friends, my neighbor was braving the smoke to feel about for additional survivors; there was no one else in the truck. The young man was delerious. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I'm casually driving home whistleing along with the radio... to a Mozart tune.
I arrived about eight to ten minutes after the wreck to a scene right out of Iraq: it looked like a car bomb had gone off in my driveway. A body lying on the concrete screaming bloody murder, a truck on fire, people coming out of the woodwork milling about and pieces of truck everywhere! When our RFD and a county constable showed up (a good five minutes later which is remarkably quick) with a 2.5 in. water hose, out went the fire.
The guy had been drinking whiskey, had a loaded 12 ga. in the front seat with one in the chamber and a pocket full of cash. DPS (Department of Public Safty) was not pleased, said he was doing at least 65 mph. when he skidded sideways and broadsided my concete culvert. If I had come home just a few minutes early, he'd have nuked my Suburban and ME!! As it was, he hit, flipped once, caught the 30 inch pine tree out front of my driveway in mid-air, spun around and landed almost upside down and resting on my pickup. He hit so hard, he literally snapped off a front tire assembly,wheel, hub, tire and all, which came apart in hugh schrapnel chunks that went flying all over my property. Had you be standing within 20 feet of were he came to rest, you'd have been injured: like a NASCAR wreck on tv !!
A good hour and a half later back in the house, after the fifteen or so police and emergency vehicles not to mention the weeckers were gone, I asked Amy what she'd done with the knife. " It's out on the driveway somwere, I dropped it when we needed both hands to pull'em out". Sure enough, I went back outside with the flashlight and found my little knife in a mound of halon fire extinguisher foam and burnt debris. A little discolored but just fine other than that.
Even after all this, the kids are still expecting pizza!!! So, I oblidge; it's past ten by now. As I'm picking glass out of the bottom of my daughter's feet, (they did all this without shoes on) Amy recounts the evening's events; "I thought I would have to like, ... saw through the seat belt but I cut through it like butter". Out of the mouth of babes: at least I know how to make things sharp and here's a shining example of a little blade up for a critical job when called upon, even in the hands of a novice.
But hey, all that aside lets hear it for my teenage first responders!, I'm proud of them; they did just great! I'm glad today though has been less eventful....
(that's my responders in the last two pix...! Amy is the short girl in the green T-shirt, Chirs, my son is the tall one with a gotee', and Raven my daughter is the one with long red hair.)
regards, mitch
