Accident On The Highway

I lay on my side in a growing pool of my own blood. I could feel my heart beating but when I looked down, my heart was laying on the outside of my chest. I couldn't think of what I should do. Memory left me wondering what had happened. As I lay there on the verge of panic I heard a voice. "This one is alive!"

I tried to focus my eyes on the sound of that voice. I could see someone in a red hat but the face was blurry. He, for it was a male voice, told me to lay as still as I could. Yeah, like I was going anywhere soon. Shortly I was surrounded by voices, orders bouncing back and forth, calling for items I didn't understand.

One man came into focus. He had sandy colored hair and piercing blue eyes. He got really close to me and said he had my heart in his hands. He seemed to be in charge as I heard him ordering others to place me on a back board and strap me down. He held my heart in both hands as if it were a precious jewel. He told me that I shouldn't worry, that he would take care of me.

I was loaded into an ambulance and whisked off to the hospital. I guess I must have passed out for the next thing I knew I woke up in ICU. Machines were plugged into me from every angle beeping constantly. I turned my head toward the door as a nurse walked in and came over to me.

"You are a very lucky person", she said quietly. "We just happened to have a great heart surgeon on staff for a few more weeks."

"What happened?" I asked.

"I'll let the doctor tell you all about it, for now you should rest."

I lay there wondering about my injuries. They must have been great for me to be in the ICU. I tested my arms and legs. Both felt just fine but when I concentrated on my chest the pain leaped into my consciousness.

A short time later a grizzled old man in a white lab coat came into the room holding a chart. He came over to me and laid a hand on mine. "You're going to be fine, miss. I just have a few questions for you." He asked me my name and if I knew what day it was. I answered him and he nodded his head thoughtfully. He told me that it wasn't uncommon to lose track of days while recovering in a hospital especially after how severe my injuries had been.

I asked him what had happened. He pulled up a chair and sat close to my head. He told me that the tanker truck in front of me had blown up and from what information that could be gathered from eyewitnesses, my little convertible had been blown sideways off the road and into oncoming traffic. I had a head on collision with a pick up truck and my steering wheel broke off. It seems the steering shaft had pierced my chest and broke my sternum neatly in half. The muscles holding my heart in place had been severed and it had fallen out of my chest. Most of my blood loss had been due to the hole in my heart, put there by the shaft of the steering wheel.

I asked him why I still lived. The old doctor said that the paramedic who held my heart had plugged the hole well enough for it to keep on beating. The heart surgeon had to place a device in my chest to hold my heart still. I was not to become overly excited in the next few weeks in order to heal properly. I would battle infection for some time but it was nothing I couldn't overcome, he told me.

I asked to see the man who saved my life and was told that he had come by every day to check on how I was doing. He would come by at the end of his shift and just stare at me through the glass for awhile and then leave.

The old doctor glanced at his watch and said "He should be showing up just about now. I'll leave you two alone."

What do I say? Thank you just doesn't seem to be enough. Here he comes! The door opens...