Tag: accidents

Your Pants Are On Fire!

Brenda Stratton

When we lived on the farm, there were only two bedrooms on the ground floor. Monty had one room and Mom and Dad had the other. 

I was only four or five years old, so they put me in a tiny room off Mom and Dad’s bedroom that I think must’ve been a dressing room. 

Because the room was so tiny, there was only a small white dresser and my single bed which was tucked under the north-facing window.

There was no overhead light, just a bare lightbulb screwed into a light socket on the wall with a pull chain to turn it on.

One evening, while Mom was busy in her bedroom, I wandered into mine. 

There was a pair of Mom’s black-and-white zebra striped pedal pushers hanging from the lightbulb.

I remember the light turning on, but I don’t recall who did it, although I’ve always suspected it was me. Mom would have known better.

I was fascinated when I saw the smoke starting to curl toward the ceiling.

All of a sudden, Mom was there. 

She moved me out of the way and grabbed the zebra striped pants, flinging open the front door and hurling them out onto the front porch.

If I was the one who turned on the light, I didn’t get into trouble.

But Mom never hung anything on the light again, and that was the last time I ever saw the zebra striped pants.

The Pony and the Pig Wallow

Brenda Stratton

There are some lessons you only learn once—preferably not in a pig wallow. 

I was seven when I learned that if a pony puts his head down, the rider keeps going. It was my first lesson in physics. 

One minute I was riding bareback, with nothing to hang onto but the pony’s mane. The next, I was in the pig wallow.

I did not see it coming. One moment I was upright and feeling quite capable. The next, I was flat on my back in something warm, muddy, and unmistakably pig-related.

Pig-yuck was dripping from the top of my head to my toes.

I wasn’t hurt, but I was—stunned. I had to take my glasses off so I could see, because they were covered in that same pig-yuck. 

I wasn’t far from the house, so I climbed over the fence and walked up to the back door. 

I yelled for Mom. I knew better than to walk into the house like that.

Mom came to the door. The look on her face was one of pure horror. She didn’t say much besides “What did you do?”—sort of loudly.

I tried to explain, but by then she had turned the garden hose on me…

She hosed me down starting at the top of my head, then stripped my clothes off, and hosed me down again. 

Then she wrapped a bath towel around me and carried me to the bathtub so I wouldn’t get the floor all dirty. 

By this age, I was old enough to take my own bath, but not that day. She gave me one. Then she drained the bathtub and gave me another. 

That was the last time I rode the neighbor’s pony without permission. Physics and pig-yuck are persuasive teachers. 

The Lawn Chair Incident

Brenda Stratton

In the summer and on Saturdays, my brother and I usually went with Mom when she ran the milk route for Dad.

It wasn’t unusual for them to stop for a little while to chat with the people they had become friends with, although they couldn’t stay long because the milk trucks in those days were not refrigerated.

One afternoon, Mom stopped to visit with a farmer and his wife. She went inside the house, but Monty and I stayed outdoors.

It was a beautiful day—warm, with blue skies and plenty of sunshine. We decided to sit in the folding lawn chairs under a shade tree.

I don’t remember what we were talking about, but Monty sat in his chair with his long legs touching the ground. My legs were much shorter, so I sat on the edge of the chair, swinging my feet.

That’s when disaster struck.

My position on the chair and the motion of swinging my feet caused it to fold up—catching my ring finger on my right hand between two pieces of metal. My weight pressed down hard on my smashed finger.

I started screaming at the top of my lungs.

Monty ran to get Mom, but he didn’t make it as far as the house before all three adults came tearing out and rushed to my side.

The farmer tried to unfold the chair, but he couldn’t. He grabbed some tools to take it apart, but he became frantic—probably because I was still screaming.

He partially took the chair apart… and partially ripped it apart.

I heard Mom say something about not ruining his chair, and he said he didn’t care. There were some curse words in there too, but I don’t remember what they were.

The only choice was to take me to the hospital.

Since Mom’s only transportation was the milk truck, the farmer bundled us into his car after his wife gave Mom a white cotton dish towel to wrap around my finger.

The only access to the highway to Hammond-Henry Hospital in Kewanee was a narrow gravel road with long, steep hills.

The farmer was in a hurry, so he drove as fast as he safely could.

I had stopped screaming once my finger was released from the chair, but now I was sobbing.

I sobbed all the way up the first hill…

…and laughed all the way down it.

The sudden drop always made me laugh.

As soon as we started up the next hill, I cried again—then laughed all the way down.

I think there were three hills in all, and it happened every time.

When we finally ran out of hills, I cried all the way to the hospital.

Fortunately, my finger wasn’t broken. The doctor bandaged it and sent me home.

After taking us back, Mom finished the milk route, although I don’t remember the rest of it.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that if I let my arm drop to my side, my finger started to throb—so I held it close to my chest for the rest of the afternoon.

When we got home, Mom made a sling for me out of a dish towel.

I was pretty proud of that sling.

To this day, that same finger is still slightly smaller than the ring finger on my left hand. It’s less noticeable now, and I doubt anyone else would see it…

…but I do.

Because I know what caused it.

Tongue on the Pump Handle

Brenda Stratton

Never Ever

“Whatever you do, never ever stick your tongue on a pump handle,” cautioned our hired hand.

It just so happened we had a pump handle between the house and the barn. 

Old hand water pump in winter snow

It was winter.

Ever curious, I thought about it. The next time I went outside, I walked over to the pump. At that tender age, I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. So I tested it out. 

And stuck fast.

It instantly became clear why I should never ever stick my tongue on a pump handle. It was so cold, it felt like my tongue was burning. I was outside alone, so there was no one to help me. Wanting to get away from it, I jerked my head back—and took a layer of skin off my tongue. 

That hurt almost as bad as it did while my tongue was still stuck on the pump handle, and it continued to hurt for several days afterward. 

Mom had words for the hired hand.

When My Brother Ran For Help

Brenda Stratton

Lying in the middle of the road with the sun in my face and gravel poking me everywhere was secondary to the pain in my foot, twisted and caught between the spokes of my brother’s bike.

I looked to make sure no cars were coming, though there wasn’t much I could have done about it anyway. I couldn’t get up. The bike had me trapped. I was scared I would be run over.

I listened for the sound of cars but heard nothing and was only slightly reassured that I would probably see a plume of dust before I actually heard one. The blind hill about 200 feet in front of me was worrisome, because cars usually came up over it pretty fast.

Just before that, my brother Monty, had been giving me a ride on his new bike. He told me to hold my feet out and away from the spokes so they wouldn’t get caught. I listened, and I did try—but accidents happen anyway.

Watching him run away from me toward the house scared me, too. I knew he was going to get Mom, but I felt so alone. It seemed like I had been lying there a long time, but it probably wasn’t more than five minutes, since we weren’t far from the house.

Finally, I saw Mom and Monty hurrying down the driveway toward me. I was so glad to see them. Mom gently removed my foot from between the spokes and carried me back to the house, where she examined my foot and determined that no bones were broken.

Looking back, it’s clear to me that even then, Monty had my best interests at heart.