Today started off nicely enough. We met up in the Village with some friends for a surprise early birthday brunch for one of them. We went to Jane and had their famous Vanilla Bean French Toast--delicious and ridiculously filling. After brunch, we split off, with Carrie heading to the airport to fly home this afternoon and me heading home, stopping at a post office on the way. The walk from the post office to the bus station is where things get interesting...
For those of you who've never lived in a pedestrian- and tourist-heavy city like NYC, you probably won't understand my frustration. I was walking in Midtown and got stuck behind a huge group of extremely slow-moving tourists. As I have done hundreds of times before, I swung out to go around them. As I was passing the group, the person next to me suddenly moved left, pushing me into a standpipe (explanation here) next to the building. My leg caught on a screw protruding off of it, and I heard my jeans rip as I went flying through the air and landed face-down on the sidewalk. At this point, I was embarrassed that I'd fallen, pissed off that I'd ripped my favorite jeans, and my hands hurt from catching myself. Then I stood up, looked at my pants, and realized that it wasn't just my jeans that had ripped. I'll spare you all the disgusting details, but I had about a 3-inch gash in my leg and it was pretty deep.
Had I seen this injury on anyone else, I would have thrown up. The fact that I didn't, and the fact that it didn't hurt AT ALL makes me think I must have been in shock. Someone passing by got out a pack of wet naps from her purse and handed me one. I sort of looked at her, looked at my leg, then looked back at her...and then she handed me a handful. Someone else ran to the deli next door and grabbed a stack of napkins, and I did my best to apply pressure with my random assortment of paper products while trying to figure out what on earth to do. A man walking past asked if he should call 911. I debated for a minute because it wasn't really an emergency, but at the same time I had no idea what to do. Carrie was on her way to the airport, I could tell that I needed stitches, and I couldn't think of where the nearest hospital was or how I would go about getting there.
So the stranger called 911 while I sat down on the sidewalk, finally realizing that standing on my injured leg probably wasn't doing anything to help the bleeding stop. Two police officers showed up a few minutes later, and the ambulance arrived a few minutes after that. They loaded me onto a stretcher (which felt RIDICULOUS given the relatively minor injury I'd had, but whatever) and I got to take my first ambulance ride.
While in the ambulance, they cut the rest of that pants leg so that they could wrap a bandage around my leg, at which point I was like "oh crap, what am I going to wear home?" The paramedic said something along the lines of "Well, someone's gonna have to come pick you up so they can just bring you something else." Um, yeah, easier said than done. At the same time, Carrie was texting me about her transportation woes in getting to the airport. (I still haven't heard that whole story--the conversation kind of shifted gears when I responded with "Fyi, I am fine, do not panic, but I am in an ambulance right now." and then proceeded to tell my story.)
Fortunately, two of our lovely friends came to the rescue. They'd been shopping in Soho post-brunch, but as soon as they heard what was up, they stopped to pick up some pants for me and go to the hospital as quickly as they could. By the time they got there, I was all stitched up and almost ready to go. I ended up with a total of 12 stitches. Having made it to age 28 without stitches or an ambulance ride, I got to do both! In the same day! The only downside was they didn't turn on the siren--apparently I wasn't a real emergency or something. But they did have the lights on, so I guess that counts for something?
The doctor also pointed out as he was stitching me up that I'll probably have a scar since it wasn't a clean cut. Oddly enough, that hadn't even occurred to me until that point. It's mildly annoying, but I guess I'll have to give up my dreams of bikini modeling.
I shudder to think what the co-pays for the ambulance ride and ER are going to cost me even with good insurance, but for now I'm going to focus on just being glad I have insurance. And as a bonus, I now have lovely new pair of purple lounge pants. Other people might have thought that my outfit of red long-sleeve t-shirt and purple lounge pants didn't match, but I happen to think it's a lovely color combination!
For those of you who've never lived in a pedestrian- and tourist-heavy city like NYC, you probably won't understand my frustration. I was walking in Midtown and got stuck behind a huge group of extremely slow-moving tourists. As I have done hundreds of times before, I swung out to go around them. As I was passing the group, the person next to me suddenly moved left, pushing me into a standpipe (explanation here) next to the building. My leg caught on a screw protruding off of it, and I heard my jeans rip as I went flying through the air and landed face-down on the sidewalk. At this point, I was embarrassed that I'd fallen, pissed off that I'd ripped my favorite jeans, and my hands hurt from catching myself. Then I stood up, looked at my pants, and realized that it wasn't just my jeans that had ripped. I'll spare you all the disgusting details, but I had about a 3-inch gash in my leg and it was pretty deep.
Had I seen this injury on anyone else, I would have thrown up. The fact that I didn't, and the fact that it didn't hurt AT ALL makes me think I must have been in shock. Someone passing by got out a pack of wet naps from her purse and handed me one. I sort of looked at her, looked at my leg, then looked back at her...and then she handed me a handful. Someone else ran to the deli next door and grabbed a stack of napkins, and I did my best to apply pressure with my random assortment of paper products while trying to figure out what on earth to do. A man walking past asked if he should call 911. I debated for a minute because it wasn't really an emergency, but at the same time I had no idea what to do. Carrie was on her way to the airport, I could tell that I needed stitches, and I couldn't think of where the nearest hospital was or how I would go about getting there.
So the stranger called 911 while I sat down on the sidewalk, finally realizing that standing on my injured leg probably wasn't doing anything to help the bleeding stop. Two police officers showed up a few minutes later, and the ambulance arrived a few minutes after that. They loaded me onto a stretcher (which felt RIDICULOUS given the relatively minor injury I'd had, but whatever) and I got to take my first ambulance ride.
While in the ambulance, they cut the rest of that pants leg so that they could wrap a bandage around my leg, at which point I was like "oh crap, what am I going to wear home?" The paramedic said something along the lines of "Well, someone's gonna have to come pick you up so they can just bring you something else." Um, yeah, easier said than done. At the same time, Carrie was texting me about her transportation woes in getting to the airport. (I still haven't heard that whole story--the conversation kind of shifted gears when I responded with "Fyi, I am fine, do not panic, but I am in an ambulance right now." and then proceeded to tell my story.)
Fortunately, two of our lovely friends came to the rescue. They'd been shopping in Soho post-brunch, but as soon as they heard what was up, they stopped to pick up some pants for me and go to the hospital as quickly as they could. By the time they got there, I was all stitched up and almost ready to go. I ended up with a total of 12 stitches. Having made it to age 28 without stitches or an ambulance ride, I got to do both! In the same day! The only downside was they didn't turn on the siren--apparently I wasn't a real emergency or something. But they did have the lights on, so I guess that counts for something?
The doctor also pointed out as he was stitching me up that I'll probably have a scar since it wasn't a clean cut. Oddly enough, that hadn't even occurred to me until that point. It's mildly annoying, but I guess I'll have to give up my dreams of bikini modeling.
I shudder to think what the co-pays for the ambulance ride and ER are going to cost me even with good insurance, but for now I'm going to focus on just being glad I have insurance. And as a bonus, I now have lovely new pair of purple lounge pants. Other people might have thought that my outfit of red long-sleeve t-shirt and purple lounge pants didn't match, but I happen to think it's a lovely color combination!
I'm glad you're okay!! That's scary.
ReplyDeletegah what an event. glad you're ok.
ReplyDelete