At work, I have a certain face I use. It's my work face, and everyone hates it. I rarely smile because I take my job seriously. Anytime someone tells a joke, and I end up laughing, I get complaints because I end up laughing so hard that I cannot sign out a tool, or do my job. So I've quit laughing and I just do my job. I ask the same question each night literally hundreds of times: "What'cha need?" That gets old and monotonous, but it says I'm there for them for whatever they need to do their job. As a result of my work face, the guys at work mostly dislike me, because I don't cut up often and I rarely smile. I get comments like: "It'll get better" and "Don't worry, it's not that bad" Nope, it's not bad, but I'm at work to work and nothing else. I'm not there to be your friend or to get you to try to like me. With that said, and needless to say, I am known as unhelpful and for me. Whatever; I know my job, and I do it and do it well. Ok, so Friday night... we're working as usual, although it's a bit of a slow night, and I happened to be in rare form. I was cutting up with Rog and the other supply guys who work with me. We were all laughing at something when we heard the most awful sound. I swear it was like a bomb going off. There was the sound of glass breaking; air hissing, and the biggest damn boom you can imagine. And it was close. Within 150 feet of us close; right inside our hangar and right outside our supply room close. Scared the shit out of all of us in the hangar. John and I ran out of the supply room, leaving Chain alone. Several people were yelling, and running to a spot near one of the helicopters at the other side of the hangar. I had one thing in mind although I didn't know it as I ran, and that was that someone needed help. I don't know how I knew that, because I had no idea what happened, but when you work in the business I do, and you hear a sound like that, you know someone is in deep shit. He was, and his name is Scott. I didn't really like Scott because he is one of my biggest antagonizers. He's called me 'sweetheart' or something to that effect, knowing I hate to be called anything but my own name at work. He'll purposefully say things to get a rise out of me, but lately I've ignored him, and it's worked. I won't say how it happened because there is an investigation, but we all know what happened. A tail wheel tire on the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter he was trying to inflate exploded at several hundred pounds pressure, sending him flying and shooting shrapnel deep into a few spots in his left leg. This man is well over 6' tall, and always has this rosy complexion. He's a big, healthy, strong man. When I got to him, he was sweating, pale and in a huge amount of pain. It was hard to see him like that. Someone was just beginning to apply pressure to his biggest wound, and I asked what they needed. Someone said gloves, so I ran back to the supply room, and grabbed them off the counter and ran back with them. I put a pair on, got his foot and held it up. It was me and a man named Greg helping Scott. Everyone else was standing around looking confused, or gossiping already. I asked Scott a few times what he needed but the pain was so intense he barely could answer. I took off his shoe and sock and held his bare foot. Greg and I just stood there, holding his wound and foot for about 20 minutes till the paramedics got there. When the paramedics arrived, Greg turned the wound over to one of them and I continued to hold his foot high for a few more minutes until they got him to sit up. Then, I just walked away, walked into the break room which was blessedly empty, sat down at a table and cried. I seldom cry like that anymore but I lost it. Big heaving sobs found me again and a lot of weight was lifted from me. Thank you Lord, for teaching me something about myself. I know this won't make sense to anyone else, but the Lord taught me something I hadn't been able to figure out about myself that night and it's opened many doors for me and has eliminated a lot of confusion. Amen. |
