Finding yourself stuck in the house…. with a diagnosis of
pneumonia… just days before Christmas…with most of your shopping yet to be
done….and the tree not up… has a smell….IT STINKS! You TRY to follow doctor’s orders and rest,
TRY not to think about ‘the list’, TRY to clear your head and relax…. and THAT
is usually when something out of the ordinary is going to happen.
I had been assigned to sit and look out the window and was
doing rather well at it until I happened to see a spot where perhaps a spider
had left part of its lunch in the fall. This
brought on that urge to clean it off! I
whipped out the Windex, stepped outside, and was shining away when I heard a
car horn a short distance down the road as it rounded a curve notorious for
mishaps or wild animal crossings. But as
the car approached my house, so did the incessant horn honking. I watched as an old Oldsmobile drove slowly
by…. in the MIDDLE of the road. Traffic
was very cautiously trying to get by and all made it…except for an extended cab
truck that trailed behind and pulled into the ditch in front of my house. Curiosity easily gets the best of me. Being shielded by a HUGE magnolia out front,
I peeked around the corner of my house to discover that the car had pulled into
my drive. It is not an uncommon
occurrence for vehicles having mechanical issues to use the first drive they
come to at the top of a long winding curve and hill. I went about my business hoping the problem
would be resolved. Sometime later, I
peeked out a window to ‘monitor’ only to discover the Olds pulling deeper into
my driveway…and parking up next to MY garage door! That is when I observed that the driver did
not appear to be 100 percent in control… and THAT is when panic struck.
Keep in mind that one of the treatments for pneumonia is a
pack of high-powered steroids…. so it was panic to the tenth power! Panic Stage
1: I was dashing through the house stuffing phones in my pocket and looking for
any other object that I could use to swing, throw, or shoot…. just in case that
person decided to come in for a visit and I found myself without any way to
exit the house…with eight doors. Panic
Stage 2: LOCK those EIGHT doors! After several minutes of pacing the floor, I
tiptoed to the window to peek and see if he was still in the car, or maybe
peeking BACK at me. To my relief, he was
backing out and attempting to leave.
That is when the man in the extended cab truck…still parked
in the ditch…. that I had forgotten about…cautiously approached the Olds and
was attempting to talk to the driver.
Within a minute a Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office vehicle arrived and
blocked my driveway exit. MCSO tried to
communicate with the man…from both sides of the car and soon the second MCSO
vehicle arrived. Apparently, the
conversation was not going well because shortly thereafter the third MCSO
vehicle and an ambulance arrived. Even
after several attempts to talk to the man and calm him down, it was apparent
that MCSO had a job to do…make an arrest.
But the Olds man was not going to make it easy, requiring more than one
officer to complete the job. And,
unfortunately, face down on the ground was face down in the mud after a rainy
day.
Now with three MCSO vehicles and an ambulance in front of my
house my panic attack finally ceased. I
couldn’t help but want a closer look at what was going on, so I slinked out the
back door and peeked around the corner of the house to get a better look and
listen, exposing my rural cultural roots to any passersby that may have spotted
me. And wouldn’t you know it…. this is
when the phone in my pocket started ringing, cutting short my attempt to ‘find
out more’! But something was going down
and I HAD to see want it was. I found a
window with limited view, slightly cracked it, and began watching.
Now this is where steroid panic changed faces. I watched as the officers, several of them, struggled
with the belligerent old soon-to-be ‘incarceratee’ as he kicked, threatened,
and fought their every attempt to get his 350 pound butt off the ground, on to
the gurney, and into the ambulance. This is when steroid anger began to rise
like the transformation of the Incredible Hulk!
They needed help! And I was just
the one to do it! Bare handed! All it
would have taken was for the Steroid Stealth to go flying across that yard…. bedhead
hair standing straight up…. NO makeup…pale from pneumonia…. reeking of
perspiration (steroids do that to you, too)…
housecoat flopping…. and with a cough that gave the impression that
something was about to errupt! I would
bet money that 350 pound man would have, in one giant leap, hoisted himself on
that gurney with no help at all… with hands still cuffed behind his back… begged
them to take him away…and prayed to God all the way to the hospital, promising
that he would never do this again if given one more chance!
To the man in the extended cab truck that honked his
horn…Thank You! You likely saved someone’s life. To the Emergency Medical Team…accolades to
you as well. Your job requires a lot of
expertise and knowledge. Last, but not
least, to the MCSO who has to deal with this kind of garbage every day, and being
physically and verbally attacked. Hats
off to You! We often see videos that
have gone viral displaying officers in a not so positive manner. Yesterday, you spent a lot of time trying to
stabilize a situation and protect the well being of a person that wasn’t
concerned about his or anyone else’s life.
Your efforts are not taken for granted. Those are the videos that will likely go
unseen. Now had the Steroid Stealth
crossed that yard… some busybody with an iPhone would have appeared from out of
nowhere and it would have gone viral today.
