Thread: Hot August Nights....the Hard Way

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Ok, some of you may remember me mentioning that I might be able to make it to Hot August Nights in Reno this last week. Well, I did; but, it was a rather interesting chain of events that took place that actually allowed it to happen.

As I had mentioned earlier, after 3 weeks in a row of autmotive fun (Goodguys Drags and Pacific Northwest Nats, and then the NHRA Northwest Nats the next weekend and then 50's Fever in Winnemucca NV the following week.) my wife was ready for a break and wasn't very...shall we say amused...by the idea of hanging around until Friday so I could head into Reno on Thursday for the Hot August Nights swap meet.

In fact, we had a fairly 1 sided discussion where I mentioned it and she gave me "the look" and mentioned something about yard work that we needed to get to at home...so I finally figured that I better not push it anymore...heheh So we loaded up the van last Monday and were planning on leaving the next morning for home.

Well, we got up the next morning and got all of the last minute loading done, told my mom and dad goodby and headed down the road. Well we got about 5 miles from my mom and dad's house when I noticed that the volt meter in the van was reading low (like about 10 volts). So I headed back to mom and dad's and threw a tester on it. Sure enough, the alternator wasn't putting anything out. My wife was instantly suspicious...(well not really but we did joke about it....heheh) So, I went into town (my parents live about 12 miles out of town) and finally was able to track one down, took it back to the house and installed it in the van. By this time it was too late to leave (like around 1:30 or 2:00) as it takes around 11 hours to get home from there. So we decided to stay an extra day. The kids were really happy about this because they knew that this meant they could get spoiled a little more by grandma and grandpa before we left. Well about 10 minutes after I had finished putting the alternator in and cleaned everything up, the next link in the chain occured.

I was sitting there visiting with my mom and she looked out the window and suddenly jumped up and ran across the room toward the front door saying that Alex (my oldest boy was really hurt). When I got to the door, I was shocked to find Alex standing there crying, with what appeared to be about a 4-5 inch long by 1-1 1/2 inch deep gash running diagonally in his leg just below the knee. He had evidently been climbing up on a tractor, slipped and his leg caught the foot peg on the way down and it opened him up. Anyway, I was instantly worried that he had severed his femeral artery and might lose a lot of blood before we got him to the hospital, but I didn't notice it "pumping bright red blood" out. It is amazing what you can remember about first aid when you're suddenly thrust into the situation. So, I grabbed a towel and applied as much pressure as I could to try to keep the bleeding down as much as possible. We all loaded up and headed into the emergency room. We made it in record time....I know my wife hit triple digits on the speedo on the way in that day....while I sat in the back keeping pressure on the leg. Along the way, we were concerned that there might not be a doctor actually there (normally they only come up from Reno which is about 165 miles south, once or twice a week to the local hospital). Luckily, there was indeed a Doc in the office when we got there and we were able to get him all stitched up.

In the end, there was no major damage, (Thank God!!) the "cut" measured out at 3 1/2 inches long and just a hair under 2 inches deep. I only had to make 2 or 3 trips to the bathroom... Which is another interesting thing....I have seen much worse before and never even got close to sick; but when it's your own kid it seems to amplify things quite a bit. Anyway, he got 30 stitches, 18 self-desolvers on the inside and 12 on the outside, and was released to go home with us with a prescription for a pain killer.

As we were driving back to my mom and dad's house, my wife turned to me and said...."Ok, I get the point...I won't argue with you anymore you can go to the swap meet." We both laughed and then she mentioned that she would actually prefer to stay until Friday anyway so that if there was an infection at any point, we could get him back to the hospital before making the big push to get home.

So in the end, I did actually get down to Reno on Thursday, hit the swap meet, part of the auction, and the show and shine at the Atlantis. Then of course we had to go to Summit because I can't stay away from that place...heheh.

More important than all of the car stuff though, my boy is fine and healing nicely. He's only had to take the pain killer meds a couple times and he'll get his stitches out next week.

I just hope the next time we go, it's a lot less eventful. I enjoy "normal" and "boring" much more.

Cheers,
Firechicken