911

When I came around the corner, the skid loader was pitched forward into the ditch.

You haven't lived until you've heard the screams of a human being in mortal agony.

Especially a loved one.

My husband was clinging, convulsing, to the cage of the skid loader screaming - making sounds I have never heard from a human and never wish to hear again... and no actor can make the sound that comes out when the pain, and terror, are real. I don't care how much they try. (I can pretty much watch any horror, war, or science fiction movie quiet peacefully now.)

"My LEG!! OH MY GOD!!! IT'S OFF!!! I DON'T KNOW. PLEASE GOD HELP!!!!"

I didn't know what else to do, I knew there was nothing I could physically do at the scene, so I just ran for help. The next closest house was a mile down the road, and cell phones don't work where we live. No time to think, or feel, just RUN.

I felt like the preview of the six million dollar man running in slow motion. Not knowing what was really happening, not being able to feel, the surreal nature of the moment overcoming me like a bad dream. One leg pumping in front of the other, but going nowhere - as if time began to stand still.

Fortunately, the teenage daughter of our neighbor was out in her golf cart.... All I could do was jump in to the passenger seat and babble incoherently about needing to dial 911. I am quite sure I frightened her to death, as she still acts funny around me to this day. But in the meantime....

You could still hear my husband screaming from where we were.

I still didn't know what, exactly, was happening. But I was about to find out.