About ten minutes after stopping for gas and coffee, my mom watched as his car veered to the right sideswiping a tree which caused the car tip over onto its side and slide across the road into a ditch, righting it and then finally crashing into a utility pole, breaking it and causing it to spray sparks on to the grass which caught fire. Fortunately, my dad was wearing his seat belt and the car had an airbag which deployed and he was able to get out of the car and walk away with some minor cuts and bruises.
The accident closed this main road for at least 5 hours and probably more because the utility pole was cracked and endanger of falling on the road and so it needed to be replaced. A cost of $20,000 that we're responsible for but is covered by insurance.
It took three hours to get to my family. My nephew's friend's mom drove us up in her minivan so we could collect all the luggage that had flown out all over the road and had to be (My Wrangler is great but has no storage) removed from the car because it was totaled. I drove my mom's car back since my mom was too shaken to drive.
Of course my dad refused to go to the hospital. A 76 year old man goes through all that and refuses to go to the hospital. The EMT's cleared him but did recommend going to the hospital. We got him to his GP early Monday and the doctor felt he needed observation and some tests. At first it was thought that my dad had fallen asleep at the wheel but that didn't seem right. As I thought about it, there were many times my dad would sit down and go right to sleep - or so I thought. Falling asleep at the drop of the hat seemed a bit weird to me but maybe not so weird for a retired 76yo who thought he was napping too. The doctors said he wouldn't know the difference between falling asleep or having a cardiac event - very scary.
It looks like that his "naps" were really cardiac episodes caused by his arrhythmia. He had to have a little monitor implanted near his heart. This monitor will record everything and then every week or two, my dad holds a device against the implant which will transmit the info over a phone line and to the doctor's office. They will monitor him for 2-3 months (seems like a long time to me) and then see if he'll need a pacemaker (likely). Until then, he is not allowed to drive or ride his bike which really sucks because my dad is a very healthy and active man for any age but especially for 76. He does spin classes, lifts weights, runs on the treadmill and does the rowing machine. He also bikes for 3-5 hours 4-5 times a week weather permitting. He's not complaining now but I'm sure he will be in a few weeks.
As for me, I had to drive back PA to make arrangements for the car and to get the police report. Then I had to Earl proof the house and then we don't even get a drop of rain! This left little energy and even less motivation to blog (sorry) but one very strange thing did happen on the blog.
On Tuesday, my hits went through the roof, not the roof of a house but the roof of the Empire State building! I thought it must be a mistake but I have two different counters and they were counting the same number of hits. From what I could tell, I had referenced Professional Football player Troy Polamalu (the guy with all the hair) in a previous post and the big story on Tuesday was that he had had his hair insured for $1 million dollars! I got over 20,000 hits but no comments.
Thanks for reading, I'm sure things will be back to normal soon so please be patient.
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