Jules and I and a few friends went out for a dove hunt last night at a friend’s ranch. We are all standing around, the birds begin to fly, and Jules downs one that sails over into this small ravine. She goes over and attempts to find it. She is standing on the top of a rock pile, determining how she is going to negotiate her way down when out from the rock crevices a rattler strikes out at her. She jumps back, obviously startled, loses her footing, and tumbles off the edge. She fell head first, face down, about 3-4 feet down, and smashed her tibia on a boulder. This caused her to rotate about 180 degrees and falls another 3-4 feet and lands on her back wedged between a boulder and a fallen tree with her gun underneath her and a shooting pain in her leg.
She calls out for help. I can barely hear her as the birds are now flying hard and heavy. I attempt to go find her and find out why she is calling. I eventually locate her down in the ravine. We get her positioned and work together to get her out. We make it up the hill, I go get the car and alert our other hunting partners. A firefighter in training comes and assists me with getting her into the car. We drive back over to our parking spot and she thinks she is not that bad and tells me to finish the hunt. It is about 7 in the evening and we have about a half hour left.
We keep shooting, her watching from the car, until we are out of time. I get in and drive her to the emergency room. Four hours later, they are giving her morphine and admitting her to the hospital. Here is how bad ass my wife is:
Yeah, so after seeing that, I felt like an f’in a-hole for even considering to continue to shoot, let alone actually doing so. I realize now, she was in shock. Adrenaline was coursing through her veins and neither she nor I had any idea at all what a life threatening situation she had just been in. First of all, the snake could have bitten her and secondly, she could have fallen on her head instead of her leg, thirdly, she could have died from the pure shock of the trauma.
She is lucky to be alive today folks. She had surgery this morning at 9 and it went as well as could be expected. She now has a metal plate running the length of her shin and about 8 screws in her tibia holding it all together.
I know this is not my usual fair for this blog, but I thought I would reach out for some worldwide support for my tremendous wife.
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