Ouch

I missed a phone call from Misty last night and figured it was her calling to talk about a text message I sent about the man situation. She and her fella Drew aka "the tall one" were visiting his family in Arizona and popped down into Mexico for the weekend.

When I got home and checked my voice mail there she was again, but this time left a message. She was completely panicked and clearly upset. The message said, "Call me back no matter what time. Just call. " There are messages and then there is tone of voice that scares the crap out of you. This was a tone of voice message. Knowing that it was after 1:30 am where she was I called anyway. She picked up on the first ring. Clearly, still up.

Earlier that afternoon she and Drew were in their last hour of a 3 hour ATV rental, driving around the Mexican desert when they flipped the vehicle. They were both strapped in, but as the ATV went sideways Drew put his arm out and crushed it terribly. The stars aligned and from nowhere a car full of non-English speaking men drove by and she flagged them down. They made room in their car and drove M&D into the nearest town and to the police station (where again, no one spoke any English.) These men were so intent on getting Drew to town that they were driving on sidewalks, they hit a parked car and zipped through intersections. Drew was alert and talking the whole time, but in a lot of pain. (He had broke his arm in 15 places.)

The police took them to the "hospital" which Misty said was the scariest place she'd ever been. Again with the situation that they don't speak Spanish so she ran out to the street to find anyone who could translate. She found some guy who was willing to come in and help, (thank you!!!) and within 20 minutes they established that the local hospital couldn't help. So they arranged to ambulance him to the border and then airlift him to the big hospital in where ever Arizona. (I'm thinking Phoenix, but I don't know.)

All told it only took three hours from the accident to the moment he was put on the helicopter. She had to go back to town, check out of the hotel, pay off the ATV people and then drive back to the hospital. When I called she was just driving into town and almost at the hospital.

Today she says that Drew has had one surgery and that the orthopedic guy said the damage was less than they originally thought, but that he does need to have a couple more surgeries. He'll end up having to have a bone graph (ouch) but likely won't lose the use of his hand. He's in serious pain and today the hospital staff is mostly just checking vitals and doing pain management. Misty seemed upset about that, but I assured her it was a good thing that he was having a day to stabilize and that they weren't having to run him through a million things.

It sounds like the worst weekend ever, and the moral of the story is when you flip your ATV - keep your damn hands inside the vehicle at all times. Being so far away I feel a little helpless, but I can provide moral support (and a fedex'd laptop.)