It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. It wasn’t in the game plan, and certainly wasn’t in the back of my mind. During my seven-year stint in the military, I probably made thousands of parachute landing falls, and well over a hundred live parachute drops from moving airplanes with no problems whatsoever.
So, to say I was surprised to find myself being driven to Southside Regional Medical Center early Saturday morning, holding a Boy-Scout kerchief against my bleeding and obviously broken thumb would have been an understatement. That it would happen during a charity event was even more surprising. How many times have I climbed in and out of tractor trailer beds I can’t even begin to count? This time seemed no different than any other, but the result was much different.
It seems funny that something like a broken thumb would happen to me. I am not typically clumsy and don’t normally put myself into situations where I might get hurt. But after bouncing off the pavement at the Wesley United Methodist Church parking lot around 7:30 a.m., I had no doubt that my thumb was broken.
Truthfully, I don’t even remember falling off the back of the truck. One minute I was in the trailer and the next I was up and walking toward the audience of potato packers. A minute later, I was loaded into a car and on my way to the emergency room with my hand raised, and a small trickle of blood coursing down my forearm.
All of that was outside of the original game plan. The game plan was to unload some 20 pallets of potatoes, and move them to a staging area where they could be broken down into smaller lots for food banks and feeding programs throughout the Tri-City Area. This was the second year in a row that the United Methodist Men's groups from Wesley, Ivey, and Highland were putting things together to help the needy and hungry in the area.
We had been doing the potato drops in the past through the Society of St. Andrews, which would facilitate the drops by coordinating between the farms with excess potatoes, and the church groups that would disburse them. For a couple years, we were unable to get potatoes, and it became apparent to us that the fuel costs were keeping us from completing this great mission event. That’s when we decided to ante up the $2,000 to offset the fuel costs. Amazingly enough, once we provided the funding the potatoes became available. In addition, we also had to rent a fork lift and pallet jack in order to unload the truck.
That’s pretty much where my day began. At 5:1 5 a.m. I found myself in the back of the truck, working with the forklift operator as we started to unload the spuds. We got the first five or six pallets off, and then started to have to use the pallet jack to move the pallets into range of the lift.
We were very careful during this process, as we didn’t want anyone to get crushed with the load of potatoes or stuck between the lift and a hard place. We took our time, and eventually wheeled the last pallet to the fork lift area. By that time, the fork lift operator knew exactly what to do and the last pallet was taken off with ease.
One of the three of us working the truck sat on the edge and pushed himself toward the ground. In hindsight, I should have done the same. But I thought I could step on the edge, swing my foot around, and catch it on a step about midway toward the ground. Everything seemed to work right in my mind, until I realized that my plant foot opted not to stay planted. Quicker than an eye-blink, I realized I was falling parallel to the ground, so I reached out with my left hand to sort of cushion the fall. I didn’t realize at the time that my thumb would take the brunt of the cushioning, but I did a short time later as I could feel the pressure building up in my glove.
Some have said that I was just interested in getting out of bagging 40,000 pounds of potatoes, and I am not saying that they aren’t right, but the bagging exercise was completed in record time, with everything separated and carted off before 10 a.m. When I got back from the hospital, around 10:30 to get my car, I noticed the lot was clear and a stack of pallets stood in the grass at the back of the lot. Next time, I think, I’ll let someone younger help unload the trailer.
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