My Dad's Accidents

My father has had his fair share of accidents through the years, some requiring trips to the hospital. Once such accident I was a witness to - and that night I thought I lost him forever. It was a harrowing experience I'll never forget but I will say this, he's taught me very valuable lessons in most of his incidents. I wouldn't say my dad is overly clumsy - he's no Tim Allen by any means. But I am sure if he could do it all over again, he probably would've thought things a little more thoroughly before each incident occurred. But that's life, isn't it? You may have regrets about certain things, but you can never go back and change things. At least in these circumstances, everything turned out alright for him.

One incident involved him cutting the top of this large flower pot with a box cutter. It was a huge pot that was very difficult to carry around. The top of the flower pot got damaged somehow - I don't remember how. Well, it was just the very top of the pot that had a chunk broken off of it and my dad was cutting around the entire circumference of the flower pot and then it'd be as good as new. I wasn't there to witness this particular accident, so I don't know the exact details as how he got cut - and I never did ask him to recount the exact details. I think what happened is the knife slipped away from the flower pot and cut him right in his left arm muscle. It definitely required a trip to the hospital for stitches, but nothing worse than that.

It was several years later that another scary incident occurred, one that could have been much worse than it was. We were at my uncle's garage, just a short drive from our home. We were dealing with this cement mixer that was jamming up and we were needing to use it (it was my uncle's and he has practically everything a person could never need). My uncle had turned the mixer on and my dad was standing in close proximity to it. As the mixer became jammed again, the handle and the spinning drum began to slowly flip over until it was in the dumping position. Well unfortunately my dad wasn't paying attention and the handle of the mixer struck him in the stomach. Luckily it only left a red mark on his stomach and didn't impale him. I think because it was moving at a relatively slow speed, it didn't stab him like it could have. Still, a very scary situation to watch as it happened. Yes, I was there during that one.

And the scariest incident of them all occurred during a cool, fall day at my grandma's farm. It was in 1994 when I was 12 years old. We had just remodeled a part of the house and had brought a ton of demolition material out to my grandma's farm and stored it in an abandoned building that was ready to cave in. My uncle who lived with my grandma allowed us to store the materials there, which then we could set on fire and burn it all. It would be like this one giant bon fire. My dad and I had already transported all of the demolition debris there, so all we had to do is go there and set the building on fire and watch everything burn. We were planning to have a good time with it, so we brought candy and sodas with us. He also brought along gasoline - plenty of gasoline. Actually, TOO MUCH gasoline. He poured way too much gasoline inside the building and the biggest mistake of all was that he lit the fire with him still inside the building. I had my back turned away from the building when suddenly there was a huge explosion and I was pushed down to my knees by the force of the explosion. I turned around to see the building in flames and me quickly in a panic wondering where my dad was. I thought he was a goner but then suddenly, I see him walking through the flames and out of the building. Yes, he was burned, but thankfully nothing too serious. Just first and second degree burns. But my god, that was probably the scariest night of my life, the night when I thought I lost my dad.

So needless to say, I have a fair share of memories involving my dad's unfortunate circumstances in life. As I mentioned, thankfully they have all turned out okay. He has a few scars but nothing that has lead him to be disabled or disfigured. He's been able to enjoy his life despite a few hiccups along the way. And I am hoping to have him around for a lot longer into the future. It's incidents like these, especially one in which you're a witness to a potential fatality, that makes you realize how precious life can be. You can't take life for granted and it's very important to live life to it's fullest. That's probably the greatest lesson of all that my dad has taught me.