My Bloody Memory

I am posting this a day early since there appears to be some anticipation for the story. So, here goes...

Twenty five years ago, on October 14, 1980, I had a bad day. It was a day I will never forget, for I carry a "nice" little reminder around with me in the form of a scar. This scar is about 3-1/2 inches long on the inside of my arm, extending from my elbow out toward my hand.

So, what happened?

I thought you'd never ask. Well, it started out like any "normal" day in my younger years. I was attending DeVry Institute of Technology in Phoenix at the time, and it must have been a break between trimesters, because I was visiting home in Tucson. And a normal day in Tucson for me pretty much consisted of going over to see my friends Jerry, Dave and Mahlon (all brothers). Usually Dave and I would get together and start tinkering with odds and ends, talking about ideas, and then performing some unusual experiments of one sort or another.

Many of these experiments involved fire. I have a few rather...interesting...memories that could account for my basic fear of fire, but those are for another time. On this particular day, I came face-to-face with the explosive power of fire. Literally.

Dave and I were bored. But then, that's how these things usually started. Of all the things we could have done that day, we decided to make a short movie. I had my Super-8mm movie camera (real film in those days!), and Dave had an old line-control model airplane that he didn't want anymore, so we decided to take it out for its last flight. We were going to crash it and catch the event on film.
[This was before we began flying radio-controlled airplanes, and long before night flying was even a concept in our minds]

But then one of us decided that crashing it wasn't enough. Why not make it burn as well? Well, but then came the problem of how. How do we make the plane burst into flames after hitting the ground? After some contemplation, we decided that "burst" was the operative word here, and that it would be easier to just make the thing blow up when it hit the ground. If anything caught fire in the process, then that would be a bonus, but gosh, wouldn't it be cool just to see the thing explode into a million pieces?

Boys.

Our attention was then focused on what we would need in order to create the desired explosion. I had some old M-80s, but they were in my apartment in Phoenix at the time (wow - can you believe I still have those M-80s? I bet they're pretty unstable by now). But even if we had some firecrackers, how were we going to time the blast with the crash so the plane would explode on impact? Fuses take a few seconds to burn.

We needed something more immediate. Of course, Dave just happened to have most of what we needed on hand. The idea that emerged was to create a small pipe bomb that could be detonated with a rocket igniter. The rig would be connected to a weighted toggle switch that would close the circuit on impact and set off the bomb. Dave had some red dot shotgun powder on hand (from some previous experiments) and an empty CO2 cartridge (from some other previous experiments). All we needed was a rocket igniter.

A quick trip to the nearby hobby shop, and we were all set. All we had to do was make the bomb and install it on the plane. We filled the empty CO2 cartridge with red dot shotgun powder, inserted the rocket igniter, and used epoxy or JB Weld to seal it in place. We then took a toggle switch and fitted a small lead fishing weight over the lever and crimped it in place. This was the weighted switch. We mounted the switch to the fuselage so it stuck outside the airframe (with the "off" position toward the rear) and installed the explosive device under the wing.

When we were all ready, we loaded everything into the car [carefully] and drove on up to a nearby school yard. Mahlon (Dave's younger brother) and a friend of his came along, as well as a neighbor kid who lived across from Dave whom we referred to as "Jinx". There is a long history regarding his nickname (which he very appropriately earned in ways that seemed to defy physics), but again, that is a story for another time. Just the fact that he was with us on this day did not bode well with me. But we pressed on, anyway.

When we got to the school yard, Mahlon and his friend went off to play on the grounds while Dave and I went to work. Jinx was just there. I don't know what he was doing, but his sinister magic must have been stewing in the background, because it wasn't long before things started to go wrong.

Everything was ready to go. After making all the proper connections, all that was left to do was to start up the engine on the plane and do the deed. But Dave could not get the engine started. It just didn't want to run. He decided that the batteries he was using for the glow plug may be low, so he picked up a spare pack that he knew was charged. But still no luck. The glow plug tested good, but the engine simply wouldn't start. Then the batteries died. This had to be the work of Jinx, since Dave absolutely swore that those batteries were charged (and usually if he said he knew, then he knew). So he tried yet a third set of batteries.

Same scenario.

The engine would not start and the batteries were all coming up dead. This was an omen we should have listened to, but we were determined to catch an exploding airplane on film that day. We decided to set the plane on the ground and film it where it sat while we pulled a string to toggle the switch to blow the plane up. But there was still the problem with the batteries - how were we going to set off the bomb? Of course, there was a solution.

Dave had some jumper cables and an extension cord in his car and suggested we hook it up to his car battery. The next sequence of events should have occurred in a different order...a sane order...but we were so bent on capturing this footage that neither one of us stopped to think about what we were doing. We just needed power to the bomb.

Dave connected the jumper wires to his car battery. The extension cord was cut off on both ends to expose the wires, so I hooked up one end to the other end of the jumper cables. It was then my task to connect the other end of the extension cord to the bomb switch.

Do you see where we went wrong here?

To this day, I don't know why I didn't stop and say, "hey, Dave, how 'bout we connect your end last?" But my thoughts were simply focused on getting the wires connected and getting my face out of there, quickly. "Quickly" was the operative word here. There was a whole lot of haste going on after everything that had gone wrong up to this point. It was getting late and we would be losing the daylight, soon.

Instead of string, we had steel wire connected to the bomb switch. This was the wire that normally would have been used to control the airplane in flight. It was tied to the switch so that we could pull the detonator switch from a [relatively] safe distance. That was the idea. But during the process of connecting the battery wires to the detonator switch, I was nowhere near that safe distance. And I was scared.

Duh!

I laid down on my side next to the model airplane and reached up under the wing to attach the wires. I twisted the wires together - first the positive lead, then the negative. The circuit was hot, and I realized the bomb was live. I wanted to get away from there. Quickly.

So, quickly, I stood. No sooner than I was fully on my feet, I started running. Or, well, I took one quick step on my way toward a safe distance...and I tripped over something. It was the detonator switch wire (the trip wire, per se). I looked down at my foot and saw what I had tripped over, and my heart skipped a beat. I was thinking, "oh my god how lucky I am that it didn't work!" I thought maybe I kicked the wire clean off and the detonator switch had not actually toggled, so in my belief that I was now safe because it didn't work (perhaps believing it wouldn't work because Jinx was there), I turned to look at the plane to see if the switch was thrown.

As I leaned just a little bit forward, I noticed the switch was, indeed, thrown...just as the plane exploded in my face.

BOOM!

I still have a snapshot in my mind of that single moment in time. I can see the image of that plane coming apart. It is not like slow motion as many people describe when a traumatic event occurs, it is simply a snapshot as if I had taken a photograph at that very moment. The very next thing I knew, I was turned 180 degrees around, facing Dave and Jinx who were, at the time just before the explosion, sitting against the fence talking to each other.

The weirdest part of this experience was that I seemed to instantly know where I had been hit. Maybe I just don't remember the discovery period, but I knew my arm was ripped open (I couldn't exactly miss that), and I was also bleeding profusely from my face, just to the left of my nose. And of all days, I just happened to be wearing a white tee shirt, providing good contrast for the blood that was spattering all over it. I must have been a pretty sight.

My first instinct was to assess the extent of my injury. Since I had a hole in my arm, I was concerned about whether I would ever be able to use it again, so the first thing I did was move all my fingers. I was very relieved to discover that my hand still worked, but was still afraid that I could somehow wind up losing my arm. I then freaked out, thinking there was a piece of my arm missing, and I began yelling, "get me to a hospital, quick!" Dave looked up, and I cannot describe the look I saw on his face. It scared me, because I knew he was responding to what he saw of me. Jinx appeared to be unconscious, as he had rolled over on his face and was not moving. I thought he might be badly hurt or even dead and asked Dave, "is he OK?" As Dave leaned over to have a closer look, Jinx piped up and laughed, amused by his attempt at a practical joke to make us think he was hurt. Then he looked at me and suddenly I saw the same look on his face that I had seen on Dave's.

"The asshole is alright," I thought to myself and promptly forgot about him. I hated him now. "Get me to a hospital, quick!" I repeated. I was wandering around, looking for the missing piece of my arm, but could not find it (I found out later I wasn't missing anything - skin is just really stretchy and it had pulled back away from the wound). I then decided I was getting too excited and calmed myself down. I was bleeding pretty badly and was afraid I might bleed to death. While Dave was gathering everything up to throw in the trunk of his car, I asked where the camera was and told him to "film me!" I wanted to see what they saw, and I had a movie camera available, and I thought it could be my last performance.

"Film me!"

Dave realized that he had already locked the camera in the trunk...along with his car keys. Suddenly, the camera didn't seem to matter anymore. Here I was, standing there, bleeding to death in some school yard, and we had no way to get to the hospital with the keys in the trunk. Cell phones didn't exist, yet. Nobody knew where we were. And there wasn't a whole lot of traffic running past this lonely school yard. In fact, I walked out to try to get the only passing truck I saw to pull over, but the driver wanted nothing to do with me.

Thanks for the help, buddy!

But then the most bizarre thing happened. Jinx's mom drove by. Out of the blue. Just happened to be driving on that particular street for whatever reason. She had no idea we were there. But Jinx flagged her down and I climbed into the back seat. Well, actually, I climbed on top of the back seat, since the back seat was folded down. It was a station wagon, and there were two or three other siblings of Jinx scattered about the vehicle and I was expecting a whole variety of supernatural events to begin spontaneously occuring at any moment. It was bad enough that I had to sit cross-legged and with no seat belt on. Jinx's mom drove to the hospital like she was driving to the bakery to pick up some cupcakes. I was thinking, "step on it, lady, I'm dying here!" In fact, I almost said it. I didn't want to die in Jinx's car, and I didn't know if his mother was into Voodoo or something, so I kept my mouth shut.

Dave said I was turning white, and everybody in the car was very quiet or didn't want to look at me, and the mood was just very sullen. It was kind of pissing me off. I guess I wanted them to stop being so damn serious. I wanted to hear a joke, or something. I didn't like seeing people look at me like I was dead already. So I tried to break the ice by saying something like, "hey, there's a 7-11 - how about we just pull in there and I'll run in and ask if they have any Band-Aids." I was the only one who cracked a smile. Perhaps it was just too macabre, but I just felt like they should be the ones trying to cheer me up.

I didn't have the knowledge at the time - or I wasn't thinking straight - to put pressure on my wounded arm to help control the bleeding. Instead, I rode to the hospital holding my other hand under my arm to catch the dripping blood. By the time we got to hospital, there was so much blood pooled up on my pant legs and spattered on my shirt and dripping from my face that it looked like I was bleeding from everywhere. And I had a hand full of clotting blood. There was a nurse (or somebody) who put me in a wheelchair, and the first thing she said was to use my hand to put pressure on my arm. I held out my handfull of blood and asked, "what do I do with this?" She looked, rather dumbfoundedly, and then said, "just dump it!" (as if to say, "you idiot!"). I didn't blame her. I tried to dump it out of my hand, but by this time it was like jelly (or, perhaps, more like Crisco shortening) and it clinged to my hand. It took about three shakes to get the clump to drop off. That must have been a pretty site on the sidewalk leading into the emergency room, but at least it bought me an express ticket into the building ahead of all the other poor souls who were sitting in the waiting room.

By this time, I think I was more calm than anyone around me. They rushed me down the hallway into a room and got some towels and immediately got the bleeding under control, pressing down hard until the bleeding stopped. They had me sign a couple of forms, which I did my best to do with my right hand (the one that wasn't full of blood), and they stuck me with a few needles, but eventually things quieted down a bit. I became rather intrigued by what I could see inside my arm. I could see tendons moving back and forth when I moved my fingers, and I could see the muscle and the bones. And it just so happened I was in a teaching hospital (the same hospital I wound up working at for over 12 years) and there was a doctor there with some students who happened to be studying the arm at the time. The doctor asked if they could take a look, and I said, "sure!". After all, I was as interested as they were.

My only regret is that I didn't think to ask if they could take a picture of it. I would be curious to know if I would still consider it interesting, now.

A really pretty nurse was assigned to me, and she reported that my mother was there and wanted to see me. She asked if my mom was OK with the sight of blood, and I told her that she was squemish and should probably clean me up pretty good before letting my mother in. I think that's one of the few moments in my life that I had considered myself sly. ;-)

But what can I say - I was a boy. And, boy, was she pretty!

Anyway, I spent three days in the hospital after undergoing emergency reconstructive surgery. They removed a piece of metal from my face (a piece of the CO2 cartridge) that was about the size of a nickel and was embedded in the bone just to the left of my nose. There was an excellent microsurgeon there who patched it up so well that you can't even see it now. It helped, too, that it was right along the outline of my nose.

But I was lucky - very lucky. One inch up and to the left, I would have lost my left eye. And the piece that ripped my arm open, just missed the median nerve, which would have rendered my right hand useless if it were severed. All I lost was a bit of sensation along one side of my forearm, and whatever plans I had during the break from school. And I haven't had a single problem with my arm, since, as a result of the incident (until I broke my hand in March of this year, but that's another story). Dave told me later that he was struck in the leg by a couple small pieces. Jinx, of course, was completely unscathed - except, perhaps, by the embarrassment of his bad joke. I never saw the guy again. Thankfully.

Before returning to Phoenix, I went back to the school yard to have a look at the fateful site, thinking I might see some evidence of the event. But it had rained the whole time I was in the hospital, so there wasn't a trace of evidence that I had even been there...except for a couple of chips in the cement where the plane had blown up. My only memory of the plane is that one single snapshot that I have in my mind. Dave said it was completely destroyed. He had some of the pieces and he gave them to me. I kept them for a long time, but eventually threw them away.

But I still have the piece of metal that was removed from my face. And there is quite an interesting happenstance story about how I got it, but that, too, is another story for another time.

I haven't played with explosives, since. Maybe I'll dig up those old M-80s and set them off tomorrow night.

Happy 25 Years! I'm still alive!