Adium

I think I am jinxed, cursed, or something that actually prevents me from having a normal day. I have accepted the fact that I don’t have a normal life, but why can’t I have a day or two once in a while? Today has officially won the title of “Worse day caching, ever”. I would say that it will be able to keep that title until the end of time, except that this is me we are talking about.

A long day of hiking, ended by carrying my brother to a clearing up some rocks while talking to 911 on my bluetooth earpiece explaining where I am cause Latitude/Longitude, with 5 points past the decimal, aren’t good enough for him. I planned the day of hiking just west of the green lakes park today in hopes of grabbing the 19-20 geocaches that were in that area. I had a detailed topographic map, satellite imagery from both Microsoft and Google, plus a standard 3D map showing the terrain, all of which had the caches marked on them. The last thing we needed to worry about was getting lost.

I was going to spend the day with my brother, Aaron who is home on leave from Fort Bliss, TX for two weeks. Today was day three of his leave, which was special for both of us because of conflicts with deployments and being moved around in the Army we hadn’t seen each other in over 3 years. I have 4 sisters, but Aaron is my only brother. This was something we both looked forward to doing together.

The first stop, was a small park that wasn’t even registered with Google maps. I had been to this park several days ago and found a perfect place to hide a level 5 cache. 20 feet up in a tree was a large hole, right next to a large branch that could be used to lean a long ladder against, or throw a rope over and climb up. The tree had no branches except for this one 20 feet up. Without any equipment there was only one way up and that was to well, I don’t know what you call it. See the picture.

This is my brother Aaron in the tree. I had an old BDU top in the car that he threw on to protect his arms as I showed him my arms which were scrapped to hell from this very same tree. I tried to climb it but failed. The good thing about me is I knew when to quit.

From this position Aaron thought he had a good footing and was able to hold on. Using a rope he was trying to get himself a better stance and climb further up onto that branch. His foot slipped and he slid all the way down hugging the tree.

I watched him fall, and even though he is safe and still alive that 2 second scene has been replaying over and over in my head like a bad song I can’t get rid of. Every time he hits the bottom my entire body freezes and my heart skips a beat feeling the same fear I felt the first time when he fell. He had slid down in between the trees and was still somewhat upright by the time I had take the few steps to be next to him. I grabbed him and slowly laid him down on top of the unused safety equipment (rope, caribeeners, & harnesses).

I remember thinking that he’s okay, he’s awake looking at me and not making any noises. After I laid him down I saw it. His foot was pointing the wrong way and I could see the bone.

I freaked…, I said in a low tone, call 911. I patted every pocket twice looking for my phone, then remembered I always keep it in the front right pocket. I pulled out my phone and stared at the phone but couldn’t focus. It suddenly became midnight, everything went black. I couldn’t see the numbers on the phone. My hands were shaking which made it harder to see. I felt the numbers on the phone…, found the bottom right corner button went up one…, 9. Using my left hand found the bottom left button went up four, 1, 1, press send. I can read “Emergency” on the screen of the phone. I did it. I put the phone to my ear, it’s rining.

“Ring”, I look down at Aaron as he covers his face. “Ring” did I dial the right number I pull the phone away from my ear and look at the screen, it says “Emergency” I put it to my ear again “Ring”, my heart sinks, why is no one answering the phone!?!

“911 what is your emergency?” About friggin time!

“My brother”, I stuttered trying to pause to breathe but hurry and say everything at once. “My brother broke his leg!”.

911 Operator “OK, where are you?”

I am shocked! They are 911 and don’t know where I am? “I’m, uh, I’m…., in a park”.

“OK sir, what is the name of the park?”

I don’t know, my brain was so focused on my brother I didn’t know anything. I then remembered my GPS. “Can I give you longitude and latitude”

“OK?”

I read off the coordinates as I normally did over the radio in the Army when giving frequencies or other information, speaking loud and clear and using the phonetic pronunciations like the ever famous niner instead of 9. Except this puzzled the operator, I had to repeat and speak much slower.

The 911 operator then exclaimed, “I don’t understand, where are you?”

My worry quickly left me as now I was starting to get mad. How could they have someone answer an emergency number and not be able to understand where I was when I gave him information old as time that would bring anyone who knew how to use it within 20 of my location. Taking a deep breath I managed to clear my head and everything came back to me. My mind was never so clear. I could look at him and in a second knew my boundaries. I knew what I could do and what needed to be done. Everything I ever learned through the countless long tedious first aid classes in the Army were there. A complete inventory of everything I had with me was on the tip of my tongue.

I told him what park we were in of what corner of Syracuse. I explained that the trailhead was in the back northwest corner of the park past the tree baseball diamonds and how to get to our location from there. The operator continued to sound confused and I thought I needed to start explaining the game of baseball so he could visualize a baseball diamond.

I realized that it would be difficult to find us where we were at. I looked at my brother and he was rocking back and forth holding his leg in the air making grunting noises that some people make when they smash a finger and are closer to being angry than feeling any pain.

I grabbed a canteen and set it on his stomach, pulled out my bluetooth and put it on my ear. Then began to pick Aaron up, not realizing how out of shape I was in. My adrenalin was now kicking in as my legs started shaking and my back started to make the sound of knuckles cracking. As picked him up, he put his arms around my neck and I carried him up several large rocks and out of the ravine we were in.

I started to worry that I would drop him and further injure him, I held him tighter. The 911 operator is continuing questions about baseball, I am ignoring him and talking to Aaron making sure I am not hurting him. Aaron only shakes his head “No” and I continue to a clearing where I can safely lay him down and visually see anyone coming into the Area.

Aaron threw his head back and tried to lay flat and nearly screamed when he let his foot touch the ground. I told him he would have to support it himself for only a second and I will get something to support it. I ran back to the bottom of the tree. Without disregard to myself I completely hurdled the large rocks, then as if I had been an acrobat in the circus my previous life jumped onto the side of a large tree to avoid a small thornbush without loosing momentum to land within inches of the bags. I couldn’t of planned it better had I taken the time to study the area. My mind was in overdrive and I was able to plan a million point maneuver in a fraction of a second then follow it through.

I grabbed both backpacks and threw them over the same shoulder then climbed the rocks back to where my brother was with the same dexterity and acrobatic moves that I couldn’t repeat today even if I wanted too.

Back at my brother I lifted his leg and placed the bags underneath his leg. I realized that he was wearing my BDU top with my rank (SGT). It had to come off. I was now worried about him getting in trouble with the Army as some people in the Army never understand, and may try to get him in trouble like I got in trouble. I told him it had to come off. I unbuttoned it and helped him take it off then used it as a pillow.

Still on the phone with 911, he finally understood what I was doing and told me not to move Aaron as I could injure him more. I now heard sirens. I ignored the 911 operators statement and told him I was leaving Aaron to go flag down the EMT’s. I told Aaron and gave him the canteen telling him to drink water, and stay awake. I was off.

Running down the trail I could see a red truck with flashing lights approaching the trailhead. I told the guy he was looking for me in between breaths and he slowly pulled out his boots and started to place them on.  At first I thought this guy just didn’t care and didn’t want to be here, but later realized that he was taking his time cause he had to wait for some other fire fighters before he went in himself.  The 911 guy that I completely forgot about told me that he would let me go now and I hung up.  Looking at the phone the phone call was 6:25 from the time I called to the time the first responder arrived.

Once we started to walk back to my brother I pointed him out the first chance I could get.  His leg being raised up on the bags it was easy to see his blue jeans.  Then I took off again and ran back to him.  He was still awake, and was trying to hide that he was emotionally mad with himself.  He was punching the ground and gritting his teeth.  I was surprised that he didn’t feel any pain.  I told him help was here and to hold on a little longer.

The rest of the paramedics came and started to cut his pants off and I took a step back and started to make more phone calls.  I called my father and told him what had happened.  He wouldn’t believe me, thinking I was joking.  I reminded him, “when have I ever joked about something like this?”.  I tried to assure him that everything was fine and that I had taken care of everything.  I did want him to cancel his doctor’s appointment that I knew he had later that day.

The EMT’s put a brace on Aaron’s leg and took him away.  I grabbed every ounce of gear that the two of us brought out and walked back across the car.  Several EMT’s asked me if I could carry it all and if I was ok.  I assured them that I just got out of the Army and carrying large packs is part of what we do.

Nearly giving myself a hernia from carrying all that equipment back to my car, cause I am so out of shape than what I was 6 months ago when I truly was in the Army, I packed everything up and got ready to go.  Some people that were doing maintenance around the park were working right by where I was parked and seeing all the emergency vehicles went back too see what was going on.  They had seen my brother and were now back to work and telling me there opinions.  One guy was missing half his arm to begin with, so this made me a little more uncomfortable around them.  The last thing I wanted to hear was the story of why he has one arm in fear it may be similar to my brothers story.  The older guy didn’t most of the talking.  I shouldn’t of taken much he says to heart especially from someone who is a gardener for the county parks services.  However there was no one else to listen too.

This guy kept telling me about all the re-constructive surgery Aaron would need and how bad it looks.  Giving me his every opinion.  At one point I wanted to grab the rake out of his hands and shove it down his throat.  This was not the time to be telling me worse case scenario.  I am aware of what an infection will do, what a break is and how bad it looks.  I saw it happen.

After a near eternity of listening to the gardeners talk, the ambulance finally started to leave.  I pulled out behind it and followed it all the way to the hospital.

Syracuse is a unique town.  While I claim it as my home town that is mainly because I come from a small town that is rarely on the map about an hour south of here.  Whenever I have needed to go to the hospital before I have gone to Cortland or one of the two in Binghamton.  I had no clue that there were so many hospitals in Syracuse.  I believe it is a total of 4.  The part that surprised me and somewhat embaressed me is that 3 of them are all on the same city block.

I followed the ambulance directly up to the emergency room and then after I pulled in that small cubbie hold parking lot realized that it was only for ambulances and other emergency vehicles.  I turned around and tried to find a place to park.  I found a parking garage and pulled in and grabbed a ticket, parking in the nearest vacant spot I could find.

I walk out and see signs pointing me to the emergency room and then ask the hospital desk about my brother.  I tell them he just came in and why and they assure me that he isn’t here.  I told them that I saw him come in here, just minutes ago.  I am starting to get mad and one nurse calmly grabs me and walks me outside.

“is this where you saw your brother come in?  You are at Crouse hospital, I think your brother might be at upstate down the hill”

I was shocked and embarrassed but didn’t care all at the same time.  There were two hospital emergency room entrances on the same street.  I ran down the hill tried to find a point that looked familiar to me before I went underground.  After about 15 minutes of finding my way I found the right emergency room.  I unknowingly walked through a metal detector and froze at the sound of an alarm going off.  I had cops stand up on both sides of me from behind glass windows.  I turned to talk to one and in about half a second I told him my entire life story.

I realized what I had said and corrected myself without being told to calm down.  The cop asked if I had anything that could hurt him or someone else on me.  I pulled out knife.  The cop let out a gasp with a chuckle and told me I couldn’t take that inside.  I was half tempted to tell him to keep it but he said it would take just a second.  He wrote down my name and phone number on a piece of paper and then asked for more and more information.  Had I known it would take this long I would of tossed it outside and walked on it.  Believing that I was about done I waited, and waited.  Thinking I am about done every few seconds.  The cop goes to rip the piece of paper out of his book and it starts to rip, so he tries to rip it from the other direction it rips again.  The cop had to  re-attempt ripping out a piece of paper about 4-5 times before he handed me a mangled piece that I violently grabbed and ran away towards the nearest nurses station.

The front desk gave me a sticker that said “Wednesday” on it and pointed me in the right direction.  I found my brother and he was in a much better mood joking and flirting with the nurses.

I walked over to him and asked him how he was doing.  He smiled and assured me he was fine.  I had to leave briefly a couple times while they gave him X-rays but for the most part they let me stay right there the whole time.  I snapped a couple picture of him and a nurse yelled at me saying that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures in there.  I asked why and he gave me a dirty look and walked away.  Under other circumstances I would of tried to sneak a couple of shots afterwards but here the last thing I wanted was to be kicked out and not be able to see my brother.

One of the doctors came in and decided that Aaron’s foot needed to be reset and it was stopping blood flow to the rest of his foot.  I had two nurses swarm me from both sides and tell me I had to leave.  I told them I really wanted to stay despite the blood and whatever else might happen.  They said if I stay I had to sit.

“We already have one patient, we don’t want two.  Sit down”  I heard that over and over.  I sat down but being so nervous and figgitety I couldn’t sit period.  After about 10 minutes into it my father showed up.

I explained that i had taken care of Aaron and we both wanted him to go to his appointment and not change his schedule around because of us.  It’s just a broken leg, we are at the E.R. and everything is covered.  I didn’t want him to ruin his day cause his two sons that were both in there 20’s were acting like a couple of kids.

He responded with “I wanted to be here.”  Which made me feel a lot better and understand.  It if was my little girl I would be there regardless what happened.

I briefed my father on everything I knew, apologizing for being dumb every few sentences. By the time I had brought him up to speed I turned back into the room with Aaron and his leg was already set and he was passed out.  To keep everything in place until he could get into surgery they put a cast on his leg.

I have a sister who also works here in Syracuse.  I went and saw her with Aaron yesterday and she told me that she worked today from 9-5.  Being the manager of the store she works in she works with a lot of college kids.  So to set a good example and to enforce a standard she doesn’t carry her cell phone with her while she is working.  With my father now being at the hospital and Aaron passed out I went to the mall she works at to go and tell her what happened.  I was eager to do this as it not only was the best way of telling her but it got me out of the hospital and get some fresh air.

(This is a long story and I am slowly writting it, I will hopefully finish soon).