While I was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, we burned a lot of wood in our wood-burning stove at home for heat. As a result, I needed to make at least two trips each summer with my van to cut wood for the winter. The first few times I did this, I searched for places that advertised firewood for sale as “you cut, you haul.” The only problem with that method of finding firewood was that you didn’t always get a bargain. In fact, sometimes it was downright expensive. Sometimes those “you cut” places would fleece you. And if you’ve never heard the expression of being fleeced by somebody. Yeah. Well, that kind of like means you’re being ripped off, like a sheep having its wool shorn or fleeced. It wasn’t long before I started looking for a piece of land in a wooded area. I wanted a piece of land with some substantial acreage and some trees. It was okay if it had been logged as long as it had trees and firewood. Usually when big landowners such as the railroad company or the Bureau of Land Management sold a tract of land, they would have it clear-cut first. Whenever land was clear-cut, only the commercially viable lumber would be taken from the land. Small trees would be knocked over and left lying in the process. That was just considered collateral damage. But that collateral damage was great firewood. The smaller trees that they didn’t knock over, they would leave standing when they put the tracks of land up for sale. That’s why I was looking for a piece of land. I finally found such a piece of land and bought it. Now I had a place to go to get firewood any time I needed it. That worked for me. Whenever I went to cut firewood, we would make a day of it. My wife would prepare a picnic lunch. We would load up the van with my axe, my splitting maul, and my chainsaws. I would line the inside of the van with a heavy-duty tarp to protect the carpet, and I would put cardboard down on the floorboard as an additional layer of protection for the floor. When everything was loaded, my wife, my daughter, my dog Molly, and I would all get into the van and we would head out. As I said, we made a day out of these woodcutting exercises. The guy who owned a piece of land next to mine ran a little sawmill. So, if there were trees that were too big for me to cut, I would have him cut them. There was one really huge tree on my property that had a diameter of six feet. I gave him that tree as payment for his lumbering services. In return, he gave me two cords of firewood plus all of the woodcutting that I ever needed. We had a very good symbiotic relationship. One Saturday when I was cutting wood with my chainsaw, I was clearing some scrub oak. Scrub oak is a pain in the ass to cut because the wood is a really hard wood. But that shit burns really hot and it burns for a long time. As a result, it produces a lot of heat for the house. It is hard to clear that shit, but it is worth it. On that particular Saturday, however, the automatic chain brake failed on my chainsaw while I was using it and it kicked back on me. That chainsaw was my first chainsaw, and it was a cheap Homelite. As a result of that incident, I bought a Stihl chainsaw which had a lot more power and a manual chain brake that was pretty robust. When the Homelite chainsaw kicked back on me, I didn’t think anything of it at first. I just kept right on working. I had worked up quite a sweat, as you could imagine cutting that scrub oak. But after a while, my right leg seemed to be sweating a helluva lot more than the rest of my body. It seemed to be sweating so much that my pants were sticking to my leg. Not only that, but my dog Molly also started paying extra attention to my right leg. I thought that was weird. Finally, I stopped to take a drink of water and check out that leg situation. Then I noticed my right pants leg was soaked from my knee down and the pants were kinda shredded. I tore the pants open and blood was gushing out from my knee. My wife about had a conniption fit. She started screaming up and down and wanted me to go to the hospital right then and there. I had cut way too much wood to drop everything and just run to the hospital. Yeah. That wasn’t happening. I had to get all that cut firewood loaded into my van. Luckily, I had some John Wayne combat bandages underneath the driver seat of my van. I pulled one out and held my leg straight, I pressed the bandage down tight over the wound, and then I bound it tightly over the wound to stop the bleeding. It worked. I said, “What the hell.” I told my wife not to worry and that everything was going to be alright. I said as soon as we got the wood loaded and we got home and got the wood unloaded, I would go to the hospital. Everything would be fine. She bought it. Hook, line, and sinker. I went down to the creek that was about halfway down on my property and washed the excess blood off my leg. Then I got the wood loaded into the van, and we headed to the house. Once we got to the house, I unloaded all the wood and put all the tools away. Then I changed clothes, and we headed to the emergency room at Madigan Army Hospital at Fort Lewis. When we got to the emergency room, I was standing in line behind a few people. I was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with the John Wayne bandage wrapped around my leg, and I had blood all over the place. I must’ve looked a helluva site. There was a lady in front of me. She heard my daughter talking behind her and she turned around. All my daughter had said was, “Daddy, when are they going to see you?” It was a simple enough question. I answered, “Well, we have to wait for these other people.” Maybe I didn’t sound sick enough. I don’t know. But when that lady saw me and all of the blood, it was a Kodak moment. You should have seen the look on her face. She was speechless. About that time, the nurse at the desk said, “Who is next?” The lady turned around and said, “I am, but you should take the guy behind me first because of all the blood. I’m sure he needs your help much worse than me.” The nurse looked at me and said, “What seems to be your problem?” I thanked the lady and stepped around her and started to speak but the nurse saw me and asked, “What in the hell happened to you?” I replied, “I was cutting some firewood up in the mountains about 50 miles from here with a chainsaw and I cut myself. Oops. It was bleeding pretty bad, so I put this John Wayne bandage on and finished my work. Then I came back home and changed clothes and came here.” “I’m going to take you right back to see a doctor. How long ago did you cut your leg? And did you ever lose consciousness?” “It was about two maybe three hours ago, and no I didn’t lose consciousness.” “Two or three hours ago? What in the hell have you been doing?” “As I said lady, I cut my leg up in the mountains cutting wood. It was about 50 miles from here. I couldn’t just leave my wood up there. So, I had to load all my wood and haul it home. That took time. I also had to change clothes. I told you all of this.” I no sooner got into the back when a nurse came in and asked me, “What in the hell happened to you?” I replied, “Could you get a doctor?” “Tell me what happened to you first?” “The reason I want you to get a doctor is that I don’t want to keep repeating the story 50 million times.” “I have to be able to tell the doctor what happened to you.” “Well, all right. Condensed version. I cut myself, really bad cutting wood. I put on a bandage to stop the bleeding and I came here. Help?” “How bad is the cut?” “Look lady, I already told you. Pay attention. It’s pretty bad.” She grabbed the scissors and started to cut off the bandage. I said, “Unless you are ready to start sewing right now I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” “What are you talking about?” “I told you it was really bad. Unless you’re ready to start sewing, I wouldn’t cut off that bandage. Cuz that’s what’s holding my leg together.” She didn’t believe me. She cut off the bandage. As soon as she did, my leg split apart at the wound and blood started gushing! And blood squirted her in the face. The nurse fainted and hit the floor. Boom! Like a log. When she hit the floor, she knocked over the tray of medical tools and made a helluva racket. Several people heard the noise and came running. I was holding my leg together to try to stop the bleeding, and a nurse was laying on the floor. It looked like a scene straight off of TV. A doctor came up to me and asked, “What in the hell happened to her?” I replied, “That should be painfully obvious. She fainted.” “Let’s start over. What in the hell happened to you?” “Condensed version. I cut my leg with a chainsaw. I bandaged my leg with a John Wayne bandage to stop the bleeding. I came to the hospital to get help. Johnny on the spot nurse decided to cut the bandage off, even though I told her don’t cut the bandage off. Blood hit her in the face. She fainted. The end.” “Could you move your hands just a little bit so I could take a look at that cut?” So, I moved my hands a little bit and blood started gushing. The doctor said, “You’ve got an arterial bleed. Keep pressure on that until we get you cleaned up. Then, we’re going to stitch you up. Did you lose consciousness at all today?” I replied, “No. The only person that lost consciousness today was your nurse. Apparently she doesn’t like blood. What’s up with that?” The people in the emergency room sewed me up and bandaged me up and sent me on my way. I’m not sure whatever happened to their squeamish nurse. Even though that nurse couldn’t handle the sight of blood, I wasn’t about to let a little cut stop me from getting my load of firewood and turning my trip into just another exercise in futility.
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