Trauma at Tomato Days

*Warning: This post has some pretty graphic photos of Steve's arm injury. They will be after the story, just in case you want to read but don't want to see.

Well this morning started out well...Steve and I went down to Elias' new house and picked up my nephews Ross, Ren and my mom. We all headed over to the Hooper Park to celebrate Tomato Days. After lots of carnival games, blow-up playhouses, and hot dogs, mom took Ren home for a nap. Ross, Steve and I stayed to watch the highly anticipated "Sponge Drop". Supposedly a small plane was supposed to fly over, drop wet sponges with prizes attached, and everyone would go home happy. That is NOT what happened. What we thought was called a gyroplane, now called a powered parachute, paraplane, powered paraglider, etc. flew from the West, circled around and came back over the field filled with people to drop sponges. They started dropping the sponges and Ross, Steve and I moved forward to get closer...which I actually think was a good move. The paraplane started getting lower and lower and I thought that was strange, but everything was happening so fast, there wasn't much time to think about it. Ross and I barely missed the plane hitting us, but Steve was not as lucky. I turned around and saw Steve diving to the ground, and the paraplane running over a whole bunch of people. It was horrible; I felt like bodies were flying everywhere. Steve stood up and was bleeding from his arm. I said, "Steve you're bleeding." He didn't even realize it till I said something. It turns out Steve was knocked over by the paraplane; he didn't have time to get out of the way.

There was so much commotion. People started coming over asking if we were ok. Steve was pinching his arm and a ton of blood was still coming out. Some off duty nurses and EMTs came to the rescue, laid him down, and put some napkins over his wound. When they put some ice on his head, is when I realized he had been hit in the head too. We learned some little girls had been hit and one or more of them had broken legs. A Life Flight helicopter came and was getting ready to take away one of them when they put Steve on a back board and started taking him to the ambulance. During all this I was freaking out and trying to call mom and make sure Ross was ok. Ross was taking it so well. He was so concerned about Steve and the little girls. He wasn't crying or anything though. Mom and Elias got there right when they were taking Steve away so they took Ross and I went with Steve in the ambulance.

While in the ambulance, Deon, the EMT and a family friend, put in an I.V. and had him in a next brace. We went to McKay Dee and they did a CT on his head and did some kind of X-ray on his arm. They just put ice on his head. They cleaned out his cut which is about two inches wide and cut all the way to the bone. The doctor stitched up the inside and then the outside. Steve also has a big bruise on his knee from where he fell and a pretty big bruise on his shoulder too.

Steve was doing so well. He was laughing with the people that were taking care of him in the park and continued making jokes and laughing at the hospital. He is such a good husband, he said he was acting like that to keep me from freaking out even more. And that helped him to stay calm and keep a level head.

The doctor gave him an antibiotic to keep an infection from developing in his arm and a couple pain pills for his head. They aren't concerned about his head, because he didn't lose consciousness and wasn't complaining of pain.

So we are home now and doing ok. We had a fun time watching it on the news and it will be a good story to tell for a while.

Now for the pictures:

Here is a video of the accident happening. Steve is the one you see being knocked down right before the camera drops.