The day that changed my life and my marriage, Part 2

These posts were originally posted on my MySpace Blog in 2007. This is a long story, so it is being broken up into several posts. Please be patient; I will post the whole story.

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Left ya hangin'... And I had no idea how hard this was going to be to write this until I got into it... I ramble a little, and I apologize.

So I heard the rustling, and I thought it was an eagle, or a hawk, because we had seen a hawk rustling through the trees maybe 10 minutes before. But it was not a bird, or a deer, or any sort of animal. I turned around, and I saw TechieDadster on the ground, on his head and knees. At first, I thought maybe he had jumped from a few feet off the ground, and landed wrong, and was bent over in pain. So I called to him, and he didn't move. Then I yelled his name, and he didn't move, or answer. Then I took off running toward him. I was about 60 feet away from him, and I started running, probably faster than I had ever run in my life. I didn't care about my knees, or anything else. I was just running toward him, hoping he would pick himself up off the ground before I got there, and turn around and look at me, and ask why I was running. But he didn't.
The next part of this story is graphic. If you don't think you can handle it, skip the next paragraph.

When I got to him, he was probably unconscious, because he wasn't responding to me, and wasn't making any noise. At this point, the training kicked in. I started looking for his cell phone. I didn't have my cell phone with me, because the battery had died, and I had left it behind when we went out that day. Normally, TD wears his cell phone on his belt, but I couldn't find it. I needed to find a cell phone to dial 911, so I started yelling "DRAMAMAMA!!! DRAMAMAMA!!!", and still searching for TD's cell phone. I looked on the ground around him, and didn't see it. I yelled to DramaMama again, and kept looking for the cell phone. Finally, I felt in his left side cargo pocket, and there was a rectangular bulge. He still wasn't moving, and he was making noise like he was having trouble breathing. His face was in the ground, and his mouth was pressed against the dirt, and I thought that if I didn't roll him over, that he wouldn't be able to breathe. At this point, I knew that not breathing was worse than a spinal cord injury, so I took our chances, and rolled him onto his back. Then I saw the huge laceration on his head, down to the bone, from the bridge of his nose, up to his hairline, and then curved down toward his right ear. There was dirt and leaf debris in the gash, but it didn't seem to be bleeding as much as I thought a head wound would. At least he started breathing better. His left contact lens was out of his eye, on his face, and both of his eyelids were covered with debris. At this point, probably 15 seconds have passed... I used the cell phone to dial 911, and reported the accident to the dispatcher.

Just after I got off of the phone with the 911 dispatcher, TD started making noise. Moaning, really. The order of events at this point is a little fuzzy to me. Not long after TD started moaning, DramaMama and LilDiva came down the stairs. I had been yelling for DramaMama off and on, and she finally heard me, and ran in my general direction, LilDiva in tow. As soon as she got a glimpse of TD, and heard him, she was getting LD away as fast as she could, but it apparently wasn't fast enough.

Little by little, over the next few minutes, TD's noises started sounding more coherent, and I could actually make out words. Then he start cursing "F&#$! F&$%! F&$%!" A lot. I told him to keep his eyes closed, and I started asking him what was hurting. He didn't say anything about his head, but he did say that his left hip, left ankle, and back were hurting. He kept asking me to move his left leg, because I guess he thought it would feel better if I moved it. I did move it, once, against my better judgment, and it didn't help his pain at all. At some point before the ambulance got there, he asked me what happened, and what injuries he had. I considered not telling him the truth as this point, but I decided against it. I told him, calmly, matter-of-factly, because that's what I would want if I was in that situation. I didn't have a lot more information than he did, but at least I could see.

That's about as much as I can get through tonight... sorry to leave you hanging again...

I told you it was a long story...