I Hope He Got to The Home Depot on Time

It was a beautiful spring morning here at the Rootchopper Institute. A great day to go for a walk or a bike ride. Mrs. Rootchopper decided to spend her Saturday morning multitasking. Instead of doing errands by car and, then, going for a walk, she decided to walk the 1 1/2 miles to the post office and dry cleaner. About 1/2 mile into her walk, she crossed Sherwood Hall Lane, a busy two-lane suburban road. She encountered a car that was waiting to make a turn. Seeing that this car was stopped she continued walking across the street in front of the stopped car. Seconds later, she watched with dread as an SUV accelerated around the stopped car and came straight for her.  "He's not going to stop," she thought. She was right. He ran right over her. Well, maybe not, since it appears she went airborne immediately after impact and landed in a heap on the street.

Within seconds a woman came to her side and started asking her what hurt. She was a nurse. It's always good to know that medical professionals are standing by in case you get run over by an SUV.. As luck would have it (okay, luck is a relative thing), my wife was lying in the street about 100 yards from a fire station.  In no time, an ambulance arrived.
 
While all this was going on, yours truly was riding around the neighborhood with a fully loaded bike. I was testing the handling of my bike with all the stuff I planned to carry for my tour next week. I decided to go ride around the block to see if I could spot Mrs. Rootchopper. Well, no such luck.  All I saw was a bunch of fire trucks and police cars tending to the aftermath of an accident. "Just another day in suburbia," thought I.

Meanwhile. the ambulance whisked her away to Fairfax Hospital, some 20 miles away.  This apparently is the nearest trauma center.  Now I had always thought that any emergency room worth its salt would be good enough for this sort of thing.  And seeing as how Mount Vernon Hospital's emergency room was 300 yards away, I thought it odd that they would take her somewhere else. Be that as it may, Fairfax Hospital's trauma center is apparently the place to be.  It is massive. It is clam, It is clean. It has a heliport. It is the major leagues of trauma care.  I am getting to know a lot about such things since, just last month on her birthday, Mrs. Rootchopper spent nearly 10 hours at the George Washington University Hospital emergency room.  That's where they treated Ronald Reagan when he was shot.  It's got an urban vibe.  It's crowded. It's loud. It's swarming with cops and perps,  So I was pretty happy to be at Fairfax.

Mrs Rootchopper spent the day with doctors, nurses, radiology technicians.  Twenty years ago they would have kept her overnight for observation, but they released her after about 6 hours.  So far her injuries are contusions, gashes and pain from head to toe.  Her fibula is broken just below the knee.  She will be on the mend for several weeks.  We came home and got her to bed.  Had it not been for my daughter's recent experience with crutches, I have no idea how we would have gotten her from the car to the house,

As for the SUV driver.  I hope you got to The Home Depot for your weedwhacker. Or maybe you were in a rush to get some Krispy Kremes. Could it be you were late for your kid's baseball game?  Was it worth it? You might want to think about whether saving a couple of minutes is worth killing somebody's mother the day before Mother's Day. You very nearly did.  In any case, do the rest of us a favor and slow the fuck down.