Near Miss [UPDATED]

A nasty freak accident today, which we -- which J -- amazingly escaped unscathed. 

I was driving J uphill from his weekly strength gym workout, which had gone very well, when I was startled by a sort of rending clank from the back of the van.  "What on earth is that?"  I asked J.

"I don't know," he shrugged. 

There were a couple of boxes of trash in the very back of the van -- from cleaning out the guest bedroom, because it's the visiting time of year (have you ever noticed, as it starts to get cold there's a flurry of visits and impulses to visit) -- that I hadn't gotten around to throwing out yet, including a defunct computer printer.  I stopped the van and looked at those, and looked to see if the one footrest of J's that was swinging back and forth had banged against the wheelchair.  I took it off and put it on the floor.  I couldn't see anything else wrong, so I got back in the driver's seat and stopped at a red light where the side street from the gym joined the main road.  I was planning to go to the pet store for kitty litter before going home.  My right-hand side mirror had just fallen out of its housing, the grips behind the mirror were corroded and broken, and I planned to drive with great care and stop at the auto parts store on the way back. 

The light changed, I started forward to turn left -- CRUNCH-CLANK!  J's wheelchair broke loose and flipped over backwards.  BANG!  Down he went with a crash on his back and the back of his head.

He wasn't hurt.

I think that one of the boxes of trash broke his fall.  (See, sometimes it pays to be a slob.) He said he'd hit his head, but there was no redness or bump anywhere on it, and he had no pain in his head, neck, or back, no dizziness, nothing.  Christ.  (The man had so many falls in New York as he was slowly getting sick.  I'd go out for necessities, he'd swear on his mother's soul that he'd stay on the bed or chair, I'd rush home and find him on the floor, usually with nothing worse than a bruise or abrasion.  A few times it was worse.  He snapped  a tendon in a finger, dislocated a thumb, broke a blood vessel in his cheekbone, cut his forehead right near his eye flipping out of bed, healed from all of them and never broke anything bigger.  Tested a few years ago, he had the bone density of a young man.)

A couple of kind souls who'd seen him go down pulled over to try to help us, to call the EMTs, and to wave traffic around us.  I was in shock, because I couldn't understand what had happened.  I kept thinking, Did I forget to fasten something? 

Because the day before, I had done just that.

We'd been at the swimming pool with Chris and in the flurry of saying goodbye and making plans for the weekend, I forgot to strap the wheelchair down.  It was a real mental lapse:  I do it so automatically that I thought I'd already done it.  I had driven off -- slowly, just getting ready to exit the SportsPlex -- and all of a sudden the wheelchair was rolling all over the place and J was yelling.  The brakes had been on, I think -- otherwise the chair would have rolled the moment we started to move -- but the pressure from the car's momentum must have popped them open.  It was the kind of mistake that makes you feel like you're insane, but that can happen once in two years.  I considered it a lucky wake-up call, since he wasn't hurt.  But had the chair been damaged then??

Anyway, as a result, today I was compulsive about checking the connections.  I'd carefully strapped the wheelchair down after we left the gym.  Then J had needed to adjust his sitting position, to sit up straighter, so I'd taken his feet off the footrests and gotten behind him and grabbed the waistband of his gym shorts and helped haul him upright.  I racked my brains:  had I unfastened the front straps during that operation and forgotten to refasten them?  No way, I remembered seeing the straps in place and maneuvering the footrests around them.  I could not, and still cannot, understand what happened.

What were those noises?  What was giving way?

I think one thing that happened was that the chair seat folded.  The rods along the sides of the seat must have been unseated from the cradles that hold the frame fully spread.  The sudden narrowing of the frame would have released the tension on the straps, and they could have flown off.  At least one of the brakes may have popped open again, too. 

The chair is supposed to have a 450-pound capacity, but it's surprisingly delicately built for something that's supposed to be that rugged, and it's subjected to a lot of strain.  The old van's lift frame (probably built for a child in a power chair, a van expert opined) is too low for J to get through, so I have to tip him back on the back wheel and lean him against me to get him in and out of the van, every time. That stress adds up.  Also, Chapel Hill is hilly and the paving sucks, so there are always bumps and struggles whenever we go for a walk.

Presuming it's repaired, how am I going to trust it again?  Listen for awful noises?  What if it suddenly broke loose on Interstate 40?  What if it has to be replaced?  Medicare won't pay for another one so soon (not that they've finished paying for this one).

Anyway, we sat there blocking traffic and chatting with a nice young cop for a long time, J in an extremely uncomfortable half-sitting position on the floor.  Once the EMTs had determined that there was nothing new wrong with him, they said they couldn't take us home, only to the hospital.  We said we'd pass, so they called a wheelchair-equipped van service which took about 45 minutes to arrive from Durham.  Various police and firemen managed to lift J in a sling, prop him half on his feet behind the van, and swing him around into the van service's wheelchair.  Back home we wheeled him inside and Hoyer-lifted him onto the bed, where he'll have to stay until we can get a temporary rental.

My sister and niece are coming, my monthly deadline is coming, my wits are definitely going.  J ate heartily and is sleeping like a baby.

UPDATE:  No delayed reactions, J is indeed unscathed.

I got back on the horse that threw me by (leaving J with paid supervision) driving the van to Raleigh on Route 40, turning in the damaged wheelchair for repair (the frame apparently has a lifetime warranty), and picking up a loaner, which we haven't tried out yet.  I had been feeling a little cursed, thinking maybe I wouldn't make it safely to Raleigh and back (and I hadn't paid my life insurance premium yet!), but that proved not to be the case even though the van misfires if I push it over 65 and is showing signs of needing a check-up. 

The convex passenger-side mirror had also finally fallen out of its housing yesterday; the clamps that held it in place had corroded and snapped off.  (Everything's going at once!)  I realized I didn't want to get on the highway without it, and lost more than half an hour running around to auto-parts stores looking for a new one (verdict:  the van's so old that the right model will have to be plucked from a junkyard).  The problem was temporarily solved with duct tape.

Comments

[Michael Reynolds]

There's no such thing as zero defects. Accidents, oversights, errors happen. You're living a rather amazing life. The surprise is not the oversight but that it was so rare.

[karen]

How all those fellas must have been marveling over your ability, amba. How many did you say had to do what you do(maybe differently)every day? Amazing.

I wonder if there are grants available for you somewhere through certain groups or organizations? Then you wouldn't have to pay out of pocket if something should need to be replaced.

I hope your visit is fantastic. And, man- can you tell a story.

[david]

Not that you'd want to, but if you **had** to nominate one person in the entire world to go through something like that, on the bet that he'd come out mostly unscathed, you'd do well to place your money on J.

[Outis]

YIKES! Glad to hear there was no major damage. Hopefully the financial damage won't be too bad.

[RW Rogers]

Thank goodness neither of you was hurt. Hope your visitors give you a chance to take a breather or two while they are there.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Not that you'd want to, but if you **had** to nominate one person in the entire world to go through something like that, on the bet that he'd come out mostly unscathed, you'd do well to place your money on J.

David's exactly right.

I suspect J. is giving you the best advice he could give too: eat heartily and take a nap. None of the horrors you're imagining have happened, and you're easily competent enough to take reasonable steps to prevent them.

[Melinda]

The stuff you have to do when you're being somebody's "legs" is amazing. And I agree with Karen: Is there some organization somewhere who can help you replace equipment, or give you a "loaner"?

My mother-in-law had bad arthritis the last years of her life and when she died, we gave away three canes and a walker to the neighborhood temple, which had a seniors' center.

[amba]

We'll get a rental loaner today from the place that sold us the wheelchair, and that will (hopefully) repair it. I have somebody to stay with J, and I'll drive the van to Raleigh.

[Peter Hoh]

Wish I were closer in order to lend a hand. Glad to hear that things are working out.

[Meade]

What Peter said goes for me too.

[Donna B.]

Duct tape rules!

[Liza]

Glad everything turned out to be OK. I wonder sometimes, as we grow older, how I would measure if it came to this. You give me hope.

[amba]

"If it moves and it's not supposed to -- duct tape!

"If it doesn't move and it is supposed to -- WD40!"

If only there were a formula like that for the rest of life!

Instant contest!

[amba]

Yeah, Liza, anybody can. You call on the untapped adaptability of the human organism. You do it by narrowing your field of vision to the next thing that has to be done, and disproportionately enjoying small pleasures, successes, and respites.

[Liza]

Your ability to enjoy small pleasures in a situation where too many people would feel entitled to eternal depression is what I admire about you - and wonder about...

[Richard Lawrence Cohen]

I'm very glad that the major consequence of your mishap turned out to be another excellent post--and a couple of valuable pieces of practical wisdom as a bonus, from 12:03 and 12:07. You're in my thoughts.