THE BIG BANG Part-III

It was an unusually warm afternoon for April 14, 1967. The sky was a perfect blue pitch, and not a cloud in the sky. The natural drawing class was held outside for a change, and the model was a slender young lady who had modeled for the class numerous times before.

We headed for the parking lot, to enjoy the coming weekend, which promised more warm spring like or early summer weather. Climbing into the car, there was a party scheduled at the house where we stayed, 4 guys and some outside friends, plus some young ladies from the Grace Downs airline stewardess school.

I climbed into the 1957 Chevy two-tone yellow and black-2 door as we headed back to our rented house. I leaned back in the front seat of the passenger side, with a large sketchpad in my lap, and a charcoal pencil in my hand. As we drove, I leisurely sketched on the cover of the pad.

As we turned into Old Country Road in Hicksville, the traffic was picking up for a late Friday afternoon, as both sides of the 4-lane road was busy with traffic. As I looked up, I noticed a small red pickup truck dart out of a side road and stall in the lane in front of us. Tom, my housemate and driver desperately swerved to avoid the truck, which as we came upon it, pulled out in the nick of time. Unfortunately, the momentum of the Chevy plowed us into a parked car at the curb! Headlong and squarely, we tagged the parked car from behind, brakes squealing, as we stopped. The force and speed of the Chevy and sudden impact drove me forward into the windshield. I leaned backed and thought: “Good, nothing happened to me!

How wrong I was! As I rested on the front seat, I noticed the engine sitting next to me. Also the windshield was broken out. I felt I was sweating, and wiped my brow with my handkerchief, when I noticed it was red! Suddenly a pain shot through my right foot and leg. As I looked down at it, my right foot was grossly twisted inward! My foot was in an unnatural position, perpendicular to my leg, and the pain was intensifying!

I looked at my buddy Tom, and noticed his forehead was bleeding, as he stared out the front, looking like there was something of interest out there for him.

I fell back against the hot engine, and as I did, this gentleman came and poked his head into the car. He started to talk to me and asked how I was. He then wiped my head with his handkerchief. I passed out, and a fire truck arrived which cordoned off the street until an ambulance arrived. When I awoke, I was in the emergency room of the Meadowbrook Hospital!

My life as an ordinary student was over! As I lay in the hospital emergency room, my leg was reset, causing a white outy in my brain, the pain stabbing me and causing me to rise high into the second floor from the gurney because of the resetting of the compound facture. I could literally see the bone sticking through the skin of my leg, the swelling and pain now taking over. My friends were all around me as I said goodbye, while being wheeled away to a room. Lying in the bed, it was now well past 11:30 pm, the circular room dark, with about 7 or 8 other beds occupying the floor. There coming out of the dark, was my good buddy Phil, the only one left, who snuck into my room, to see how I was doing.

Tomorrow: A better break

Please remember my brother-in-law, John, who needs our prayers even though he has more money than God, and all those that need our prayers.