Dan Bernstein the mid-day host at 670 Am WSCR sometimes asks listeners to phone in their experiences of crazy antics and injuries during a segment called ‘Daredevil or Dumbass.’ Once a story is told to the Score host, the question is then asked and answered, ‘Is this person a Daredevil or Dumbass?’
Anyway, a recent show-biz news story made me curious. Last week Academy Award winning actress Cate Blanchett suffered an injury to her head, with a chainsaw! What?
Ms. Blanchett was interviewed on a podcast and said, “I had a bit of a chainsaw accident yesterday which sounds very, very exciting but it wasn’t. Apart from the little nick to my head, we’re fine,” Cate assured, without revealing exactly what she was doing with the mechanical tool. I wondered if Ms.Blanchett was being a daredevil or a dumbass. We may never know.
This brings me to my own harrowing tale of injury. Probably the worst one I ever suffered. It was the spring of 1976. One Saturday afternoon I was in the backyard with my friend Mark Fredriksen. My task was to burn off some dried up cornstalks from my mom’s previous summer garden harvest. There were about a dozen stalks in a pile and the fire we started on them was going slow, too slow.
So what did I do to speed up the burning? Add some gas to the fire, literally. I took a Styrofoam cup went to the garage and filled the cup to the top with lawnmower gasoline from a one gallon can. I carefully poured half of the cup of gas on the fire and things started to cook up nicely. Bright yellow flames were jumping and darting. Next, for some unknown reason I stood on top of the burning stalks, to the side of the crackling fire and poured the rest of the gas on the pile. Unfortunately, as I poured out that petrol a gust of wind blew some gas on my right pant leg and the fire lit up and put my leg ablaze!
I screamed, leapt out of that pile and pulled my jeans down to my Converse gym shoes right there in the yard! Mark was stunned and kept asking if I was O.K. I was not. The pants drop put out the fire. I surveyed the damage and saw the skin on my shin from the ankle up to my knee was a burned and seared off mess. Add to this, the smell of my leg hair burning up was sickening. Oh, and the pain of all this was awful!
As if this burned up leg wasn’t enough, I next chose to NOT let my parents know about my injury. I was embarrassed and figured they’d be pissed at what I did to incur this awful burn. All Mark and I did was rinse some dangling toasted loose skin off my leg with water from the side yard hose then gingerly pulled up my Levis and act as if nothing happened.
We even went to a friend’s house that night to play a few hours of cards. As I sat in Henry French’s family rec room playing blackjack, five card stud, and jacks or better to open poker, I could feel the ache of the burn with every beat of my heart. You don’t know agony until you’ve suffered this kind of skin shredding hurt and anytime my jeans brushed up against that open sore, yow!
Finally, getting home that night I could not stand the pulsating, throbbing hotter than hell pain anymore. I went to my sister Marianne who was reading her nursing school studies and showed her my red, pink and ugly purplish wound. Mary told me we had to tell mom and dad immediately. She was super concerned about me getting an infection which could lead to amputation or worse. I grudgingly agreed.
So downstairs we went. Mom and dad were equally worried and rushed me to the Elmhurst Hospital Emergency Room. As the nurses and attending doctor carefully and thoroughly cleaned out my 15 inch seared out shin, the pain was eased by the fact that my parents were NOT mad at me and how I torched my limb. They just wanted me to be well.
A follow up doctor’s appointment a day later revealed I suffered severe second degree burns and would need to apply anti-septic foam on my shin for the next few days. One bonus from my ‘torch the corn stalks boner’ was getting to stay home from school for a week. I was directed to wear shorts and expose my foam glazed leg to as much fresh spring air as possible.
For five glorious days I was in our backyard on a chaise lounge reading Sports Illustrated, People magazine and Archie Comic books. I listened to music from a portable radio and had a handheld bell to ring when I wanted to call for my mom to bring me a sandwich of freshen up my lemonade. Jeez, was I spoiled kid or what?
My wounds eventually healed. I was able to play Little League baseball once school ended and by the end of summer the burnt off hair on my right shin started to grow back. It was no chainsaw to the head accident but still a memorable tale to recall forty four years later.
Someday I’d like to call in my burnt leg tale to Dan Bernstein and then ask, “Was I a daredevil or dumbass?”
And I think I know what the answer would be.
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