Yet Another Really Close Call

by Lloyd B. Abrams

As we passed Milburn Pond Park in mid-November, 2022, on our Saturday afternoon walk, I stopped and leaned against a wrought iron gate. But a hinge was broken, and the bottom of the gate swivelled up and struck me just below and to the right of my left knee. Immediately, blood began spurting through my lycra walking tights. Vivien called 9-1-1. We were terrified that my being on a blood thinner might cause me to bleed out.

She helped lower me to the sidewalk, then rolled the stretchy lycra material up and over my knee. Amazingly, the bleeding stopped. Not until later did we realize that the compression of the rolled-up lycra must’ve acted like a tourniquet.

A Freeport Police officer appeared in minutes, then a Northwell ambulance. I was transported to South Nauseous, our sort-of-affectionate nickname for Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital.

After a much shorter wait than we expected in the emergency room, several lidocaine injections and ten sutures were needed to close the V-shaped wound, followed by a tetanus shot. Then we took an Uber home.

We walked into our house with barely enough time to be able to make the 6:21 train into the city for a show on West 20th Street for which I had already bought tickets. So when I mentioned the possibility of actually going, my dear wife asked, “Are you fuckin crazy?”

In our home sweet home, that’s a rhetorical question.

Needless to say, that night we stayed in and watched TV.

The next day, I walked a couple of blocks in loose pajama bottoms – really slowly – and several more blocks the following day. Although some might have seen my need to get moving as stubborn determination, I wanted to persevere, to not give in. Within a week, I was walking the same distances as before, albeit slower than usual.

After thirteen days, my primary care physician removed the stitches and replaced them with five Steri-Strips. It’ll take a while longer for the injury to more fully heal, and I’ll have to baby it by covering it with gauze when I wear jeans or sweats, or when I pull on the tights that can rub against the still-sensitive area.

And I’m still wearing that same pair of lycra tights, which, of course, have since been washed. Despite my being gouged, the Hind Animal tights weren’t even torn, which seemed almost impossible because the gouge opened up a three-inch gash. And, similarly, many years before, when a dog bit my calf when I was pulling our Wheaten terrier away during a canine altercation, that same brand of tights was neither torn, nor punctured, although I needed five stitches at that time.

I sometimes wonder if I’ve been living on borrowed time. So far I’ve been incredibly lucky, because death can come a-courtin’ anytime and anywhere, like …

In 1977 when I went down on my motorcycle on the Belt Parkway at 65 mph, between two lanes. I could have also been run over. I must have been unconscious for quite a long while before I got up and walked to the ambulance.

In 2007 when I almost slipped off moistened rocks and plummeted into a gorge. I barely got my footing back in time.

In 2009 when I had a heart attack a week before the Five-Boro Bike Tour. I was supposed to be a lead marshal. It could have happened in a crowd at a pitch-point going through Central Park or climbing up the Verrazzano Bridge.

In 2012 when I was almost hit while riding my bike in the rain by a driver who ran a red light. My bike’s hydraulic disc brakes thankfully held.

In 2018 when I blacked out in my kitchen from a bilateral pulmonary embolism that just as well could’ve happened some place else, like when I was driving.

And there had been other similar close calls.

In the 1977 motorcycle incident, a bungee cord had become dislodged, wrapped around the rear axle, and I went up and over and flat onto the pavement. About the same time, Vivien felt a chill course through her. She believes that God was there to catch me.

Reflecting on the recent fence accident, I don’t know if anyone could say that his or her life had been saved not only by a forceful 9-1-1 call by an anguished spouse and a fast response by first responders, but foremost by the compression from the rolled-up leg of a pair of black bicycle tights.

Rev 16 / December 13, 2022

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December 13, 2022 … Copyright © 2022, Lloyd B. Abrams