September 28, 2014 - a beautiful early fall Sunday. Andrew was still in China for business. The kids and I went to church, the farmers market and the grocery store. The night before I had planned out all our meals for the week and made our shopping list. Sunday was going to be taco night. We came home, dropped off our groceries and picked up our swim suits and our 80 pound puppy, McKenzie. Then we headed to a new place for the kids, Pulaski Park. My mom took my brother and I there a lot when we were kids. There's an easy loop around Peck Pond, just over a mile long. We were going to take a quick hike, maybe go for a swim and then head home for taco's, followed by a family movie while mommy folded about two weeks worth of laundry.
When we got to the parking lot, there was a dog, off leash, running around. There was a couple sitting on a picnic table petting the dog. They told us that the dog wasn't theirs. That it had been at the park for quite some time and no one seemed to know whose dog it was. Well, McKenzie and the stray (the kids and I named it Coco Puff for fun) instantly began playing together. I told the couple in the parking lot (and a few people on the beach) that if anyone came looking for their dog it was apparently coming on a hike with us and we should be back soon.
All was well it seemed. McKenzie and Coco Puff were running ahead of us, playing in the mud and swimming in the pond. Then they would run by us, splattering us with mud, causing the kids squeal with laughter. About halfway through the trail, it turns away from the pond and heads up a small hill. I took this picture of the kids just at the top of the hill...
About thirty seconds later, McKenzie ran up ahead of us on the trail. I could hear Coco Puff charging behind me so I froze in place waiting for her to run past me. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground in excruciating pain. I screamed for probably a full minute. Then I pulled myself together, knowing I had to take control of the situation for my children. Bekkah immediately began apologizing for every bad thing she had ever done in her life and telling me what a great mom I am. Tucker piped up, "And you feed us." Despite the pain, he made me laugh.
I called 911 (luckily I had cell service!!) and told them I needed help, that I was at Pulaski Park, on the blue trail, almost directly across from the beach and I was pretty sure my leg was broken. The 911 operator was trying to get more information from me and Coco Puff kept jumping on me, apparently thinking I was laying on the ground to play. I couldn't help but scream in pain (and terror). The 911 guy told me that they had been able to use my iPhone to GPS me to a general location but they weren't sure if I was in Rhode Island or Connecticut (as the park straddles both states). So, both Gloucester, RI and Thompson, CT were responding. The first person we heard was the fire chief. He drove to the end of a road at the edge of the park and honked. Then he drove to the next road at a different edge of the park and honked. We had to tell 911 which honk sounded closer. Meanwhile, Gloucester EMS began hiking the blue trail at the beach where we had started and Thompson EMS began hiking in from Border Trail. The kids and I essentially began playing Marco Polo with the EMT's until they found us.
And when they found us, I have to say I wasn't entirely reassured. The first kid to arrive looked twelve years old to me. I asked if my leg was broken, the kid smiled at me and said, "Well, my licence doesn't allow me to say, but yes, it's broken." I hung up with 911 and called my friend Kelley. I incoherently sputtered out the words Pulaski Park, kids, now and she was on her way. Then I called my dad to meet me at the hospital - I thought I would need a ride home, and my boss - to tell her that I had just fallen in the woods, was pretty sure my leg was broken and I wouldn't be in on Monday. To her credit she was horrified that I was calling while still lying in the dirt and told me to hang up already. The rest of the kids arrived (none of them looked much older than 12 either) along with the fire chief (an actual adult!). The fire chief gathered up our backpack, the kids and McKenzie and began hiking them back towards the beach and parking lot to meet Kelley. He left the kids to tend to me. After about half a second of trying to take my hiking boot off and me screaming bloody murder, they decided to forgo that and just pillow splinted it. Then they rolled me onto a back board and hoisted me up. I must have said, "Please don't drop me" at least thirty-seven times. They kept reassuring me that they weren't going to drop me. The head kid held my hand the entire time, asking me questions about my kids, my husband, my dog, etc., basically keeping me talking and out of shock. Those kids probably carried me at least a quarter or half a mile to an ATV that was waiting on a wider trail. The ATV took me to the road where the ambulance was waiting to take me to Rhode Island Hospital.
This is where the details start to get a little hazy, from the pain, the small amount of morphine the EMT's were allowed to give me, and likely from my realization that I no longer needed to be completely in control - someone had found us, they knew my name and pertinent medical details, my children and dog were safe and I was on my way to a place that could take the pain away and fix my leg. I remember asking the EMT in the back with me if I was going to have to wait in the waiting room, and I remember her laughing at me. As soon as the stretcher entered the hospital I was surrounded by doctors and nurses. They cut my hiking boot off and I heard someone say, "We have no pedal pulse" just before I felt searing pain as my left leg was yanked, hard. The doctor then came and apologized and I told him he was not my favorite person. After that, someone mercifully started an IV and began pushing Dilaudid. My dad appeared and the doctors started taking x-rays. At some point the nurse put me on oxygen and started taking my blood pressure. She told me we would have to ease off the pain meds because my breathing and heart rate were falling, I remember telling her that it was OK, I didn't mind, she could keep the pain meds flowing. For some reason, I began calling people left and right. I called a co-worker at 10:30pm to cancel a business trip three weeks out. I called the church Sunday school coordinator to tell her that I didn't think I would be able to teach Sunday school that next weekend. Then, after making a series of ridiculous phone calls, I looked at my dad and asked, "Should I call Andrew?" My dad looked at me like I was from an alien planet and very slowly shook his head up and down and said, "Yesssss". I don't remember the first phone call to Andrew (apparently I made two) but I do remember telling him my left ankle was badly fractured and him saying, "Happy Anniversary" (our 12th wedding anniversary was the next day) and I burst into tears and handed the phone to my dad. The other thing I remember about the ER was being told that because of the swelling and eight or so large fracture blisters (warning: you cannot unsee this) that they weren't going to be able to do surgery right away. Instead they were going to put rods through my leg to stabilize the bones and they were going to do it under conscious sedation. The doctor explained to me that it was like roofies, I would be alert and interactive but I would have no memory of the event (or the pain). And I don't. But coming out of it, I remember hearing myself screaming.
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