So last night was pretty nuts for us. Really nuts.
Leoti, KS, 11:30. Only have 30 minutes.
Last night we slept under a metal shelter in a city park next to a hospital, Sean, Johnathan, Helen, and I. Fettecinni alfredo, fried veggies, life was good, went to bed happy.
2:30 AM, woke up slowly to the noise of Sean waking Helen up. My brain was barely working, but Sean said "Hey Steven, Johnathan's bleeding, can you go to the hospital to get somebody to come out here?" I looked over at Johnathan, who was kneeled over with Sean at his side, was dripping blood onto the concrete. His face and forehead were shiny with blood.
He was almost delerious, and shaking. I forget exactly what he was saying, but he had no idea why he was bleeding, and he and Sean were worried. After taking a quick look, I didn't think it could be that bad, since I had seen my brother Richard destroy himself on some dirtjumps, blood spurting out of his lip, and end up okay. I fumbled around for a shirt in my bag and half ran/half shuffled into the hospital.
I tried to explain the situation to the nurses, even though I didn't quite know what was going on myself. Helen had beat me to it, and they already had a wheelchair out there. They wheeled him in, Sean following. Helen felt lightheaded, so I stayed with her for a minute, then headed inside with John's wallet.
They let us watch as they cleaned him up. We all cringed as the nurse said, "Oh that's bad." C'mon. I didn't get a good photo of his face, but he had a huge gash from the top of his nose to the base of it, and a gash on top of his head, like he'd been whacked by a rock or something.
The cleanup took a long time, and then they wheeled him in for a CAT scan, which took forever, then back to the ER room for the doctor to stitch him up. In the middle of the stitching, the doctor got a phone call, and, holding the phone with a dressing, recieved the news that John's cartilage was broken in a few places, and his maxi-sumthin (I think the bone above his nose) was broken and was protruding 2 mm into his sinus.
He finished sewing up his forehead (7 stitches), then called an ambulance to ship him to Garden City (?), 40/60 miles SE, where the nearest surgeon would fix his face. They had room for two passengers, so Helen and Sean left at around 5:30AM.
During all that waiting during the op, John had regained some of his bearings, and told us that he had got up to pee right before he found himself bleeding on the ground. Looking at the trails and puddles of blood, it looks like he got up to pee, leaning against the metal shelter, turned to go back to bed, hit his nose on a low hanging, nasty piece of sheet metal, his head on the corner, fell on the ground, then wandered over to Sean and woke him up. The sheet metal actually went into his nose and broke the cartilage.
It still seems a little surreal. I've been holding down the fort, reading Kerouac. Some local cheerleaders came to practice under the shelter, so I asked them to watch over my stuff and headed here. The slow group stayed 25 miles back in Scott City (arrived last night at 11p or something!) and they're one their way over here right now. When they get here and we talk to Johnathan, we'll come up with a gameplan.
Johnathan's pretty messed up, we're worried this might be the end of the trip for him. Sean has offered to stay back with John a week while he recovers, but it might be too bad.
I'm playing it by ear, but I may need to jet in the next couple of days. I'm trying to contact Colin and Halley, who we haven't seen in quite a while. We'll see.
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