A light rain had set in, and
the road down to the lake was hard pan, south Georgia clay. After dark, as he
tried to drive back up to the main road, his car would not budge. Remembering
that an old man, a friend of his, had a tractor in a shed a mile or so back off
the road, my friend walked in the mud to the shed, where he found the tractor
and the key. Not wanting to walk the other mile to his friend's home and
knowing there would be no problem with permission, he cranked the tractor and
rode down to the lake. He hooked up the tractor to his car, climbed up into the
driver's seat, put it in gear, let out the clutch, and in a microsecond found
himself on the ground with the tractor on top of him, 8,000 pounds of steel
punching him into the cold, hard clay.
Two classical blunders had left
him hopelessly pinned, with the circulation cut off in his shoulder and arm and
the feel of broken bones against the dirt. The first blunder was in not telling
a single soul where he was. The second was taking on, without help, a
difficult, dangerous task for which he had neither the experience nor the
training.
Pinned, alone, near shock and
in terrible pain, there was almost nothing he could do. After running through
the things we all would -- crying a little, cursing a little, yelling a little,
praying a little, perhaps even offering God a little deal, he settled down to
the reality that he was helpless, alone, and in very grave danger, all because
of those seemingly insignificant errors: not telling a soul where he was going
and taking on more than he could safely manage alone.
Now my friend had one enormous
advantage, provided after a while to all of us: age and experience. He had been
down before, and he believed, "crazy" as it seemed, that there had to
be something he could do.
Finally, it came to him that
there were three things he could do, and he put all of his energy into doing
them. He found that he could wiggle his fingers just a bit; that with a small
stick he found on the ground, he could ... hang on 'til daylight; ... that and
nothing else. So throughout the night, cold, wet, in pain and totally alone, he
kept at it: wiggling around a little, picking at the problem a little, and ...
hanging on until daylight.
Now in fact, my doctor friend
does not live alone in the world. He has a family, friends and colleagues. And
there are a whole bunch of helpers -- police, sheriffs, forest rangers, medics
-- literally a room full. You are never truly alone. Unknown to him, shortly
after dark, first on the subdued scale and then with a rising crescendo, the
real people in his life began to fan out and search...
Still believing he was alone
and that it might be hopeless, my friend, because he had been down before,
maintained the pace: he wiggled around a bit, picked away at the problem clay
under his elbow, and ... hung on until daylight.
Finally, just at dawn, it all
happened at once -- tractors, wreckers, ambulances, medics, pry poles, cables
and wrenches. And then, it was all over -- a warm bed, bone surgeons,
cardiovascular surgeons; and not just a bad dream, a joke to tell on yourself
when you feel particularly cocky. But life, future, friends, family, dreams,
plans and responsibilities were all his because of those three trivial things
-- wiggling around to keep the juices flowing, picking at the problem, and most
of all, through pain, shock, cold, darkness and aloneness ... hanging on until
daylight.
Now if, God forbid, somehow you
find yourself having made the two classic blunders of isolation and taking on
the heavies, and it turns over on you, just remember to do two things: remember
something can move a little, so wiggle around; remember all problems can be
pecked at a little, so peck at the problem; but most of all, remember to ...
hang on until daylight.
-from Lee J. Colan, quoting an address delivered by Wallace A. Kennedy, Professor of Psychology, Florida State University, 1981
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