Awareness

It’s a double date sometime in October of 1960. Sue and I are in the back. Skip is driving and Gloria is his blind date. I work with Skip and had lined him up with Gloria. Skip is impressed because Gloria is beautiful. We are returning home from the cities and just finishing up the French Fries.

I am slouched down and hear some dialog from Skip and Gloria. The car slows down and I see a big highway blockade glide by. The new second lane of the freeway is due to open tomorrow so I guess Skip is going to try it out. A few minutes later Sue complains to me that we are going too fast. I’m not really aware of the speed because of being slouched down so just shrug my shoulders. I don’t want to be a wimp by telling Skip to slow down.
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It’s like coming out of a fog. Or, possibly I am dreaming. I am cold and feel uncomfortable. I am lying on freeway pavement and there is a commotion going on around me. There are several people moving about and there is a highway patrol officer as well. There is an urge to try and determine what is going on but there is also an urge to wake up from the dream or move on to a different dream.

My dad’s face came out of nowhere descending down to mine. “Was there any alcohol?” he whispers in my ear. “No.” I reply.

This is real. This is happening. What is going on?

I lift my head to look around and see men talking and then I notice a big lump just below my left hip. I see steam rising from a mass of twisted metal embedded into a huge oil tanker. My eyes follow the mass of metal back to the roof and then the trunk of a car. Think. This is a car accident. Where are the others?

Had I lost my left leg that I couldn’t see beyond the lump?

A highway police officer leans down and says, “We need to put a splint on your leg but first we need to straighten it out.” Straighten it out? What does that mean? Two men kneel down to take hold of my arms. My right arm screamed with pain. “Hey, that arm is broken.” I say. I still cannot put it all together. “Are you ready?” the officer says to the two men holding me. I feel a tugging on my left leg and I scream from the pain. “Let’s try it again.” he says. I am in so much pain that the words mean nothing. There is another tug and I scream again. Now the pain is almost constant. “One more time.” he says. I feel a strong jerk …
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The roof of an ambulance comes into focus and I feel the movement.
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I become aware of some pulling on my forehead. It looks like a hospital hall and a doctor is stitching up my forehead. I hear conversation about arriving late to the hospital because I was the only one conscious at the scene so they took the other three first.

The quiet is interrupted occasionally by urgent sounding talk and sounds from a room close by. They must be working on the others.

Then, there is talk about transferring me to Farmington.
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The roof of the ambulance fades in and out as I rock from side to side with the movement of the ambulance.
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I feel and hear the rumble of railroad tracks.
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I am jolted as they pull me out of the ambulance. I see covered neon lights glide by on the hallway ceiling. I hear the voice of my mother running behind saying, “Bill, Gloria died.” I hear the words … I understand their meaning … but nothing registers.

I see large overhead round lights. It must be an operating room.
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I have a sense of drowning. There is saliva in my mouth that I cannot swallow that feels like it is sliding into my lungs. My breaths get shorter to keep it all in my mouth. I manage utter, “I’m drowning.” I hear laughter about what I said. A few seconds later I hear, “Please move away from the bed.” and I feel the saliva being suctioned out of my mouth.
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Light from the hallway makes the room dimly lit. I see my mother sleeping in the corner. My left thigh muscles spasm wildly and I feel bones knocking into one another (the left femur has been fractured in two places) and the pain is beyond description as I scream at the top of my lungs. A nurse rushes in and mutters some words as she pushes a syringe in my left arm. Within a few seconds I feel a wave of relaxation. The pain is gone.
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The muscles spasm and I blast into consciousness with a long scream of pain. The nurse comes in and explains that it was only an hour ago that I had a shot of demoral and she cannot give me another shot for two more hours. The horror of that registers as she leaves. I am not aware of the time between spasms but when it happens I can only scream in pain. After awhile, my mother tells me to be quiet. I try but can’t. A little later mom gets really irritated and tells me to just shut up. I muffle the screams in the pillow after that.

It is getting lighter out my window when the nurse comes in and says it is time for another shot. After she leaves I try to stay conscious as long as possible to rest without pain or spasms.
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I wake up in excruciating pain. The nurse comes in and says that it is only an hour and a half before the next shot. “Only an hour and a half.” I cannot imagine “Only an hour and a half.”

There is a dull hard pain constantly now between the spasms. I can’t move much because of the cast on my arm and the tubes and stuff connected to me. But I can look out the window. I choose something to concentrate on and then look back at the clock and it seams like no time has past. This time I force myself to concentrate on something out the window for a very long time … it must be at least 20 minutes. I look back at the clock and 2 minutes have past.

This becomes routine between shots for days while the spasms subside.

Then one day they come in and say that my leg is stable enough to put me in traction. There are the big round spot lights again.
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I come out of the fog seeing the covers hanging on a wire that goes up to a pulley and down to a weight. The dull pain is much worse.

Three months later I am discharged with a full body cast from the rib cage down to the toes of my left leg. I am maneuvered into the car. Dad starts the car and I feel movement of the car and break out in a profuse cold sweat.
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Two months pass and I am sleeping. I wake up and remember. I am in the back seat and see and hear steam. I am trapped under something. I push it aside and realize that it is a body but block that thought out of my mind. Bits and pieces of memory come back over time.
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We had been traveling over 75 mph with the lights out when we hit a parked oil tanker. Skip had turned the lights out because it was still a closed section of freeway and he didn’t want to be seen by the police.

I didn’t know Skip that well and it turned out that he had a record of some misdemeanors. He was given the choice of manslaughter or military service. He joined the Air Force.

Sue was dead on arrival but they brought her back with injections and life support procedures. She seemed a little different after the accident. Maybe we were all a little different after the accident.

The wreckage of the car was put on display in downtown Minneapolis.

Sometimes I wonder why I am still alive.

And then there are thoughts about Gloria.