Faith, Calamity, and Pimping Russ Feingold

On Saturday, May 20th, my mother, my cat, and I were in my car on our way home from the vet's office.  I was driving, though in this case it were better if my cat or my mother (neither of whom have ever driven, to my knowledge)were in possession of the car.

I decided to stop at a local cemetery to put flowers on the graves of my neighbors who had passed some time before.  The church and cemetery, like almost everything else in West Virginia, is on a hillside.  I pulled up to the cemetery gate intending to be there but briefly.  It is only by the grace of God that I am not permanently ensconced there.  

It was hot that day, so I kept the car running so that mom and the cat would benefit from the AC.  When I got out and shut my  door, all 4 doors locked.  I had a bad/weird feeling I had done something wrong then, but being distracted and in a hurry I ignored it.  In order to retrieve the flowers from the back, I had my mother unlock her door - she did this with difficulty, as she doesn't see well and is not familiar with the mechanism.   I then reached around, unlocked the back door, and rummaged around to get at the flowers.  As I was doing this, I thought I felt the car move slightly but was not sure, as I have an inner-ear thing that sometimes causes a sensation of movement that is not there.  I had a bad feeling again, so I went around, looked in the driver's side window, and to my great consternation saw that:

LIKE A TRUE DARWIN AWARD WINNER, I DID NOT HAVE IT IN PARK.

I raced back to my mom, who had shut her door, naturally, and asked her to unlock it.  Again, she did this with difficulty - the seconds were ticking.  I reached in across her to put it in park, but before I could do so it started rolling backwards.  Off the hill. Rapidly. With me hanging half out of the vehicle.

It rolled down the small hill, across the church parking lot, and over another hill a nearly vertical incline.

SUCH PRAYING HAD NOT BEEN HEARD BEFORE OUTSIDE OF A FOXHOLE.

I looked at where we were headed and I was certain we were all going to die. Absolutely certain.  I had driven that stretch of road many times and used to attend that church. I had thought more than once how SOL anyone would be if they went off the road there.  It is so far down to the river bottom below that the cows pastured there look the size of puppies.

Right before we did the Dukes of Hazzard leap over the edge, Mom said, "Lord, please help us." He must have, because for reasons no one can figure out, the car turned sideways and stopped.  Mom told me later that the open door had gouged its corner into the earth, wedging it.  Thing is, there was something else wedging it.

Me.

I was trapped with some 5000 pounds of sturdy GM product covering me from my legs to the bottom of my ribcage.

The horror my mother must have felt when she looked down and saw her child trapped under the car, I cannot imagine.  All she knew to do was ask me, "What can I do?"  I told her to get to the road and hope a passerby saw and heard her.

My mother is 76 and in poor enough health that grocery shopping causes her exhaustion and pain.  Now she had to climb a steep-ass mountain.  Thank God we stopped when we did; there was no way she could have climbed very far. Yet, she took off faster than I had seen her move in years, hollering louder than I had heard her in years.

I prayed.  Since I couldn't get a full breath (an Oldsmobile on your torso will do that)and could not get free, I was certain I was going to die.  Certain of it. I was scared, so I prayed hard.  I thought of the Sago miners and thought I would be like them, suffocating in an isolated place.  There was an especial sadness for me about that.  I mourned and prayed because I was going to leave mom alone.  I mourned and prayed because I feared the stress of it all would kill her.  I mourned and I prayed because I realized I hadn't lived a life worth a shit up to that point.  I mourned and prayed because I was scared out of my fucking mind. The burning sensation on my legs was shoved into a far corner of my consciousness.

I believe God heard me.  That road is a lightly traveled rural one, and while there were houses not far away, none were in view of my location. However, a driver soon came by.  The story I was told later about him was this: he was going along and something blew out of his vehicle.  At first he wasn't going to retrieve it, but something told him he should.  When he stopped to get it, that is when he heard mom yelling.  He saw the situation and went for help.  He quickly found 4 or 5 other guys.  That is also unusual because houses are not that close together and most everybody is gone to town on a Saturday anyway.  

These guardian angels of mine, who strangely enough looked like good ol' country boys, pure rednecks all, came and lifted the car off me. The one who actually pulled me out looked familiar, but I was too hysterical to really know anybody; he told me his name. He was a past friend of my brother's and a religious man.  He stayed with me and comforted me and helped me thank God. I later found out he was a Republican.  I also later found out he paid the tow bill for my car and refused to be repaid. The others stayed with mom and reassured her until the ambulances came. I resolve to never disparage Baptists again, even if they are redneck Red State country boys; you never know when they might be guardian angels in disguise.

Y'all are probably wondering by now "What the hell does Russ Feingold have to do with this?"

I am getting to that.

Every time I leave the house, I try to remember to wear my Russ for President button.
I had it on that day.  By the time I was on the ambulance, I was becoming more aware of the pain in my legs.  I heard them muttering "it's bad" and "one full-thickness burn."  I have enough medical background to know what that means, so I  was getting freaked again.  I cast around for something to take my mind off my pain and fear and my hand fell on my button. Nothing gives me a bigger endorphin rush than the words President Russ Feingold so I started chatting him up to the EMTs.

In between answering the same questions about my name, birthdate, etc., five different times, I started with a brief bio and then launched into the one thing I believe cuts across party lines or conservative or liberal labels: the return of the payraises.  I would have talked more, but they put an oxygen mask on my face.  Damn.

I won't go into the boring details of my almost 3 week stay in the hospital except to say that I kept that pin on my hospital gown almost every day.  It gave me openings to talk  about Russ to my surgeon, several nurses, (there was one cool nurse on the Burn Unit who let me use the computer long enough to check Dkos re: Hayden confirmation) one Republican dude (I don't know what he did) who said he didn't think Bush was doing that bad of a job. Normally I would have at least glared at the guy, but being snatched from the jaws of death gives you a different perspective, or it did me: I have determined to not let hate and rage rule me. Not even in the face of monumental ignorance. Which used to piss me off worse. than. anything.  Besides, who am I to talk about someone else's intelligence? I was the eedjit who was flat-assed in the hospital because she didn't put her freaking car in park.  Still, I said to myself, "Self, don't ever let that particular feller work on you - anybody who thinks Bush ain't that bad ain't got good sense."  Well, at least the guy said he would do some research on Russ.  Who knows, he might at least respect him. You never know how the seeds you plant might grow.

The last 3 days I was in the hospital, I was on the regular ward.  I received a gift.  Being bored out of my mind and refusing to turn on the TV (CNN would have blown my new found sense of calm) I eavesdropped on my roommate, a strong willed, charming, and very intelligent lady in her 70s.  From the conversations with her friends/family I got the sense there be liberals here.  We struck up a conversation and I showed her my Russ button, hopes high they'd be responsive to my message - but I was floored.

Responsive? Hell, she and her husband had loved Russ and supported him for years. First time since I became a Russaholic I found anyone else in WV who even knew who he was.  I was tickled, to say the least.

I am back home now, doing some physical therapy and showing the PT guys my Russ button.  I go back for knee surgery on Tuesday and I am going to tell the doc he'd better get me well - I need that leg healthy to canvass for Russ come November. Mom got some very sore ribs and bruises out of the deal, but is doing okay now.  

And my cat? Totally nonplussed. Cool as Russ in a debate through the whole thing.