Crazy Night on the Farm

You're probably expecting a story about feral dogs, or rabid raccoons, or even adventurous armadillos, but you'll get none of that today.

There I was deep in slumber ready for my early morning alarm when I was awoken by my wife. "I think someone wrecked their car across the road," she told me. I go to the door and hear a horn stuck and head lights still on in the truck. I head across the street to find an older gentleman spread out on the ground, moaning incomprehensibly.

I get up to him with a flashlight to find him bloody, and by the way he's laid out I'm thinking he was ejected in the wreck and has serious back or leg injuries. "My doag, my doag, you can't let my doag get hit, she's my whole life," he cried out desperately. Having recently lost my dog, my heart went out to him. I told him I was going to call for help and go round up his dog and that I'd be back as quick as I could.

I had Andrea call 911, found his dog, got her safely in the yard, and pulled my first aid kit out of the car. All this took maybe 5 minutes, but as I was going back to the scene of the wreck I was half expecting to find him unconscious or deceased. Instead I found him propped up in his car trying to make a call. He asked about his "doag" and started rambling incoherently about how he was sorry and lost. I quickly realized he was pretty drunk.

I told him there was an ambulance on the way and that I'd found his dog. From the time of the call until a State Trooper showed up was almost 20 minutes, so probably a half hour had passed since his wreck. Andrea and I watched the Trooper from beginning to end, and as hard as I can be on bad cops I must say he was kind, professional, and efficient throughout. An ambulance and fire truck showed up, then another Trooper, and finally the tow truck. Finally the driver's girlfriend showed up to pick up the dog about half past midnight.

The After Action Report looked like this, we need another 3 D cell flashlight so that Andrea and I can both have one. I need to put together a better first aid kit for the house, and one for Andrea's car. We have to plan for up to a half hour response time from emergency services, and the realities that entails.