So last Thursday evening I'm coming home from a walk. There's this old man in the parking lot in the front of my building. He asks if I've got a cell phone. I, not being in the habit of telling complete strangers what I have on me, lie and say no. He asks if I have a phone in my apartment, and if I could call 911 and ask them to send someone to help him change his flat tire. Because he's too crippled up to do it.
OK, I didn't even know that was a thing you could do, but sure. I go inside, think about it, sigh, go back outside and ask if he has all the tools to change the tire. So I chock the tires, get the spare out, get the SUV jacked up, get the flat off. This is all a pain in the ass because his ride has an absurd amount of security crap. Like, there's two plastic covers you have to pry off to get to the little port you access to crank the spare down from the underside of the car. One of the lug nuts on the flat is entirely different from the others, and requires a different head for the lug wrench, as some anti-theft measure.
Anyway, all that's done. I roll the spare up, get ready to put it on, he asks me if I'm sure I'm not putting it on backwards. I pause to peer down at the other side, putting my hand on top of the tire for a moment.
The jack slips. Guess I needed to chock the tires against it rolling forward, rather than backward. My hand and arm halfway to the elbow are now caught between the spare tire and the wheel well of his fucking car. If you ever wanted to see a human being imitate Daffy Duck when a boulder rolls on his foot, this would have been your chance. Best of all, the old man tells me, over my screamed profanities, 'I can't do anything.'
Really? I'm not expecting you to deadlift this thing like Spider-Man, but you can't even bend over just a little to help pull the tire clear so I can get my hand free? Fucking hell, I'm in trouble here, take a chance, would ya? If I had not been freaking out about my hand, I'd have been thinking about stabbing him repeatedly.
After some amount of time, which I've estimated at 15 seconds, but it sure seemed longer, I wiggled the tire enough it fell away and my hand was loose. I'm not sure it's the single most painful incident in my life - the 11-pound alligator snapping turtle trying to take my index finger at the last knuckle in 2013 probably holds that title - but it's in the running.
Now, we're calling 911. I will note that even through the pain, I maintain my earlier lie and state I retrieved my phone before I came back outside. Because that was something to be concerned about, him figuring out I was lying. EMTs arrive, off to the hospital, X-rays, hooray no bones broken! Which is a real stunner considering the rim of the wheel well fell right across my thumb, just past the knuckle. Given how it looked when I got it free, I figured it was smashed for sure.
As of three days later, the bruising on the forearm is fading, but the wrist and thumb are still notably swollen. The thumb and palm have a fair number of abrasions and bruises of their own, no surprise there. Seem to have almost full range of motion, although the outside of the wrist twinges sharply if I'm not careful. Could have been a lot worse. My brain keeps providing slideshows of some alternate universe where I tried to kick the tire clear with my foot and the wheel of the car dropped and sliced off my toes. Not sure why it thinks I need to see that, but it's never seen fit to clue me in on the process behind such decisions.
The important takeaway from all this is to never help anyone. It's a terrible idea, and will only end badly. The story of the Good Samaritan leaves out the part where the man he helped was unwittingly carrying the plague and the Samaritan's entire family ended up like Job's. Alternatively, as Alex suggested when I told him about this over the weekend, I'm like Zuko in Season 3 of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and just really bad at being good. Equally plausible.
I don't know what it is, but spring is the time of year when bad shit happens to me. The tornado two years ago was in May, the hailstorm last year was late March, now this shit.
3 comments:
"call 911 and ask them to send someone to help him change his flat tire"
That's something you can do in the States? Wow. If I rang the emergency line here in the UK to ask that, I think I'd be lucky to get a polite "Ring your breakdown service". 999 over here is for emergencies and unless you're a mother with a child in the car and in the middle of a thunderstorm, you better not be calling that number to request help with a flat tyre.
I sympathise with your bad luck, mate, but I do think you tried to do the right thing in helping him. Sure, he's an arse for not helping you when you were trapped, but you have the moral high ground.
Hopefully the cleaner air up there helps you heal quicker.
I had a highway patrolman show up to help me once when I got a flat on the highway, but I didn't call him. I assumed he saw me and chose to stop and help, but I don't know if he would have if I called him.
With the old man, I get he wasn't moving too well, but yeah, his unwillingness to at least try and do something was flabbergasting. Ah well, just have to remember to keep my damn hand off the top of the tire in the future. I haven't mentioned this incident to my dad because I know he's gonna give me grief about that mistake.
Yikes! It's difficult to avoid taking "don't ever help anyone" as the lesson from this incident, but yeah...
I hope you're doing better now.
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