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This personal blunder started mildly enough. An aunt had died who
had just received from Medicare a mini-scooter so she could putt
around her neighborhood without having to extend herself physically.
The scooter was a small knockdown version of what most scooters are
like and after a quick disassembly, would easily fit in a normal
car's trunk for transport. Now my son Timothy has Cerebral Palsy and
uses a full size scooter to get around sometimes. The thought of
having this tinier version available for shopping and travel
excursions grabbed my interest so we bought it from the estate at a
fair price. This is where the blunder began.
My aunt had never really used the little thing so the batteries were
dead and needed to be re-charged. The owner's manual explained that
new batteries needed to be worked and drained and then charged back
up in order to get them working properly. This meant draining them
after we got them re-charged and I volunteered myself to be in
charge of running the batteries down.
Now the weather had already turned for the worst around here so I
decided to drive the scooter on the NASCAR sanctioned indoor track I
have in my home.
I didn't prepare myself properly however for this upcoming race
against all the best drivers in the world who I imagined would be in
the race with me. No goggles, no fire retardant suit. Worst of all I
failed to don a flak jacket. I will explain in a moment.
The Mike Fak Memorial Indoor Racetrack is a fairly simple course. A
double living room straightaway with a left turn into the front
foyer, another left turn down the hallway into a quick double
chicane area where the stairway and a sideboard make for a close fit
and then a sharp turn back into the straightaway.
Without preparation and little thought as always, I hopped on this
baby and the race had begun. For a while things were going fine. Of
course in my mind I was in the lead as I further distanced myself
from the competition. The little scooter that bragged of going up to
eight miles an hour was proving itself well. With the wind in my
face I saw no way I wasn't going to win another, "Mikey-is-an-idiot"
trophy
On one of the laps, I saw Jackson the cat sitting on the stairs. I
could tell from her look she wanted me to stop and place her on my
lap but I couldn't. My estimates showed that a pit stop right then
might cost me the race and I couldn't do that. Not with victory so
close at hand.
And then came what all professional racers dread: the accident.
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Coming out of turn three, I mean the hallway, back into the living room, I cut
the scooter too tightly and it tipped over. Now only at this one point in the
track are their any external obstacles that might be considered as dangerous. A
built in bookcase with a lower protruding shelf of drawers carries a sharp oak
edge about 18 inches off the ground. For many years that edge had been protected
with a bath towel as my son toddled and bumped and banged around the house. Oh
if only that towel was still there. What was my wife thinking taking that towel
off the corner? Especially since there was still a clumsy kid in the house.
According to the coroner's report which he regrettably did not get to file, "At
3:32 p.m. The owner of the home after flying off his handicapped scooter landed
squarely on the corner of the bookcase, cracking two ribs and extensively
bruising his back muscles. Regrettably I was not able to perform an autopsy on
this man who needs to be put out of his misery”
As an eye witness to the accident, I can fill you in with better details. First
off I felt my entire ribcage, go forward and slam into the front of my chest
skin and bounce back hard. I heard things crunching and was in so much pain I
thought at first I would have to be carted away in an ambulance.
Yelling feebly for my wife, she came slowly enough with the first question she
always finds it necessary to ask when I beg her to come quickly. "Are you really
hurt or just screwing around again?" When I advised her I was indeed severely
damaged goods she told me the cookies would be done in three minutes and she
recommended I change my underwear before we go to the emergency room.
Now anyone who ever cracked ribs, and my cracks were dandies, knows everything
is fine as long as you don't sneeze or cough or breathe. As my luck would have
it I caught a winter cold which made for a very long several weeks of heeling
As I approach the four year anniversary, I am thinking of putting up a
commemorative bronze statue at the crash site. My wife doesn't care although she
recommends the statue be an opposite of Rodin's "The Thinker".
[Mike Fak] |
