Posts Tagged Hospital

The week started out as busy as usual. All the normal escalation’s and expectations, but by the end of the week things had quietened down. The normal jesting took place as Mark R was duty manager and while there was some high profile work taking place it all had been reasoned out and confidence was pretty high.

I woke up as at 06:00 on Saturday morning, you get used to waking up at a certain time and I think the body just gets accustomed to it, but decided to go back to bed for a couple of hours as it was Saturday and Mum and Dad weren’t due until 09:00. As I lay there thinking about the day ahead the door bell went and Dad was standing on the door step. Bugger! I had set the alarm clock, I just hadn’t changed the setting that restricts it to workdays only (Blackberry). After letting him in, having a quick smoke and a glass of juice I hit the shower and was ready by 09:30. Mum had popped out for lunch provisions and had taken Dad’s work shoes with her so we weighed up what we were going to do and it what order. Time was passing by and we set about clearing the piles of branches I had built up from last weekend into the skip. Mum arrived about 15 minutes later with provisions and the missing shoes and immediately chipped in with clearing the decks.

Once all the debris was cleared we agreed that we would take one tree at a time (starting on the left of the picture). The first tree was the “test” as we hadn’t really got into any kind of pattern, but after a little trimming with the “loppers” and a “bow saw” Dad had with him we were able to get a clean cut and it came down missing our heads by at least a millimetre. We broke it down and carried it through the hallway that Dad had covered with sheets while I was in the shower and threw it into the skip trying to use the space as well as we could.

As we moved through the line of trees they got a little smaller, we all put on our expert gardener hats and summarised that these hadn’t got as much space as the ones at the ends, and coupled with a lack of sunlight hadn’t grown as much, thankfully. We worked hard bring each tree down, cutting it up and throwing it into the skip.

We were probably two-thirds of the way through the left hand row when the chain saw threw the chain and everything came to a halt. Well, not quite everything as Mum continued chopping up the last fallen tree and carried it through to the skip (My Mum’s a hero but wont admit it). Dad and I eventually took the chain saw to bits and managed to put it together again and agreed that we would need a new chain after the last tree.

So I ducked out to B&Q picked up a new chain, together with some more chain saw oil and a new set of loppers. After having the chain saw apart once it took about 5 minutes to replace the new chain and refill the oil.

We had by this time taken all the tree’s down on the left hand side and had also filled up the skip and started to pile the reminder on the drive.

At some point we had stopped for lunch and Mum as always managed to come up with some beautiful ham salad rolls that were inhaled rather than eaten.

We continued through the afternoon attacking the trees that were growing along the back fence. To start with they were pretty simple as they were quite thin.

As we got the final three trees things started to get interesting. Not quite sure why, but guessing it was due to the ground underneath, but the trees were leaning backwards and were top heavy. When I say to heavy of course they were top heavy in one direction, the wrong direction. There was a large tree that was right over a neighbours green house and the fear was that one wrong move and I would have a very expensive glass bill. There wasn’t much choice however and my Dad eventually put the ball in my court.

“We can do it but their might be some damage. Got the cheque book handy?”

Not much I could say really, they needed to come down and if they didn’t, the situation wasn’t going to get any better! So I said yes and we went for it!

The greenhouse was safe, but there was one branch that must have been seven foot long that as we took down I just couldn’t get a grip on. I yelled out to Dad and there was nothing we could do. As luck happened he (the neighbour) had some bamboo canes in to support the growing of runner beans, and the branch rested nicely on the top of the supporting structure. Dad made the final cut with the chain saw and it was free. Between the two of us we were able to wrestle the branch straight up and back into my garden. Phew!

The final tree was before us and we once again had to figure out how we were going to tackle this one. There was one “really large” branch that reached over into another neighbours garden, and there was no way the tree was coming down where we wanted it to without taking the branch off first. So we worked out our positions, I was going to take the weight and Dad was going to cut!

As the last buzz of the chain saw echoed the branch parted from the tree and I was lifted clean of the ground. I am not fat fat but it lifted my 12 stone clean. If you can, picture me holding on to a tree branch that is pivoting on the top of a fence panel with my knees bent. Dad dumped the chain saw and added his weight an between us we were able to lever the branch back over to my garden and land it.

Hell we were tired and if we weren’t so close to finishing I think we would have called it a day at that point!

Now for the final tree. We had done as much as we could but it was still going to be tough. It was leaning in the wrong direction, was heavy, and we were tired. We went for it!

As discussed Dad started a horizontal cut, starting high on my side and working down. As practised so many times before this would cause the tree to slip down where I could throw my weight behind it and direct it. As we reached the final part of the cut I called out moving stuck my weight behind it and pushed the tree in the direction we had discussed.

As the blade slipped through the last two millimetres the weight of the tree shifted and so did I automatically. I moved my right leg back to take the weight and my left leg forward straight into the path of the chain saw blade.

“STOP” I yelled, and Dad took his finger of the power. The chain saw had gone through my trousers on the inner left thigh, with my grubby hands I pulled the material out of the way. It didn’t look to bad, just a little bloody so I said let’s finish. Dad finished the cut with the chain saw and we brought the tree down. Then my leg stung!

I limped back to the house, dropped my trousers, and Mum grabbed the first aid kit. It was a messy wound but not deep so we stuck on a padded bandage and Mum went to get her car to drive me to the hospital.

I was seen my the triage nurse who said it would need cleaning out and stitches and then my the doctor who administered some local numbing magic. A nurse came in a spent 40 minutes washing it out before I was stitched up and sent home.

Mum had come back up and dropped me off at home before heading off out for a fish and ship supper. We were all to tired to cook and I don’t think any of us enjoyed it when it did arrive. We were all very tired and the adrenaline had worn off, so we had a beer and then I headed home limping.

Today I had a really long lay in and have spent the day resting with my leg up, but looking back we achieved a lot and I really am thankful for Mum & Dad’s help. The garden looks so much bigger and has really got me thinking about what I am going to do next.

But that is another story!