The Gift That Keeps on Giving

So what I have learned recently is that when you are involved in an "incident" like mine...people remember you. Two things happened in the last couple of days to drive this point home. The first is that I received a copy of the photo you see here. This picture was taken by the pilot who had to retrieve the door they had removed in order to get me in the copter. I had sent both he and the parameic a thank you card for taking such good care of me and he responded by sending me this treasured photo. The only question I have is "Who is the guy with all the gray hair?" He commented in the email that the picture arrived in that in the past four weeks since they cam and got me, they have not had anything nearly as exciting to do. I guess it is of some consolation that for just a brief time I was the cause of some excitement in a couple of officer's lives.

The second situation involved the Tuolomne County Sheriff. When I go hiking, especially into the back country, I carry a hand gun with me. It is more for animals than anything else. It is duly registered and licensed and I had stuffed it in my backpack after the fall. I had notified the rescuers that there was a gun in my pack and when I got to the hospital, they had dropped my pack in the corner of the Emergency Room. When the Sheriff came in to do their report, I told them as well that I had a loaded gun in my pack and could they take it for safe keeping. I had no idea when any of my family was going to arrive and I ceetainly did not want the pack and especially the gun to just be sitting there.

So, I called them a couple of days ago to find out what was going to be required to gt my gun back and after boring me with all the administrivia that is going to be involved, the guy on the phone said, "Hey are you the guy that was flown in by helicopter from Waterhouse Lake a few weeks ago?" When I confessed that I was he told me how I had been the talk of the department for a couple of days and then he said, "Don't worry about the gun. It will be here waiting for you. Take your time and get well soon."

I never cease to be amazed by the cooperative attitude of people and the CHP, hospital personnel and sheriff's department are just the most recent examples of this.