09:00 – Barbara’s mom died last night at her apartment. We knew that Sankie couldn’t last much longer, but we were still surprised at how quickly it happened. Although her sudden death was a shock to everyone, particularly Barbara and Frances, it was actually a good thing. The Hospice nurse had started her Saturday night on morphine for severe pain, so at least she didn’t linger on in pain for days or weeks.
Monday, 21 April 2014
35 Comments and discussion on "Monday, 21 April 2014"
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Sorry about your loss. Death is a part of life that all must endure. Not having long time suffering or lack of mental capability is a good way to go. When someone gives up the will to live death happens quickly.
Sorry for your loss. Barbara has been a “good and faithfull servant” to her Mom’s last years. No, one should ever doubt this.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I hope peace returns to you and Barbara’s family now.
Bob, I’m happy for you. Sad that it had to come to such a drawn-out finish, but I’m glad it’s over.
Bob, I’m sorry to hear that Barbara’s mom is gone. At least hospice was there and able to help with the pain.
Can’t add much to what others have already said here; condolences; some peace at last.
My condolences. May everyone now rest in peace.
So sorry to hear that sad news. 🙁 Requiescat in Pace.
Bob and Barbara, my sincerest condolences, sorry to hear about your loss.
Steve in Colorado
Sorry to hear about your family’s loss, but at least Sankie didn’t have a long period of pain.
Condolences. I hope Barbara, her family, and you can find comfort.
My condolences to Barbara, Frances, and all the rest of the extended family. May Sankie & Dutch rest in peace together.
Sorry for your loss. As you said, it’s better this way than the alternative. I hope Barbara and her sister can now have the time to rest and recover…
Barbara and Bob, my sincerest condolences on your loss.
Sankie now has comfort and peace and can keep Dutch in line once again.
Condolences to Barbara, her sister and you. Not easy to lose your both of your parents in such a short period when she had them for so long.
Today has been a bad day.
I was just in a major accident. Heading into Oak Ridge and rear ended some guy at 45 mph. In Solway (sorry commuters). Minor injuries thanks to airbags and seat belts. He was on a cross over in the median. Turned and went across one lane placing himself directly in front of me. No time to stop and smacked him. Three witnesses saw what happened. Talked to the state trooper when I was in the hospital. He was drunk, charged with failure to yield, DUI and was hauled off to jail. Now to work with my insurance company as there is some doubt of him having insurance. The trooper said his license was valid but he had 8 prior DUI’s on his record. Car was badly crunched leaking lots of fluids and will be a total loss as the doors were jammed shut.
I am sore, hand is bruised, neck and back are stiff and sore and will probably be worse tomorrow. I can tell, from experience now, that those airbags going off is quite an event. Stuns the senses. Steering wheel airbags and knee airbags deployed as they were designed.
Damn, Ray; thank God you’re alright, though. And thank God also for airbag design. Goes to show, though, this shit can happen to any of us at any time. Damn. Doing only 45 also probably helped.
I see peckerheads pulling this stunt every once in a while up here, only the speeds are usually in excess of 75 on the interstate where I see it most often. Never a cop around, though; but let your inspection sticker be a week overdue or a taillight cracked, and by Jeezum they’re on you like white on rice.
I hope the hospital people give you adequate painkillers; I have to threaten the fuckers with death to give me the right dose; they persist in handing me scrip for the average-sized human who has near-zero ability for tolerance of drugs.
Take it easy, Ray, and hope you heal up fast.
My condolences, Barbara & Robert.
Thankfully, an end to pain for Sankie, Frances and you.
Sorry to hear that Ray, sounds like you’re not *too* badly hurt, though I don’t envy you.
Whenever I start my car I always look nervously at the airbag fault indicator, which sometimes comes on for a second or two when start. I really worry that it’ll have a brain fart and deploy when it shouldn’t.
I hope the hospital people give you adequate painkillers;
They provided a prescription but I have thus far declined to have the prescription filled. I am not real keen on pain killers unless absolutely necessary.
I really worry that it’ll have a brain fart and deploy when it shouldn’t.
Amazing technology actually. The airbags, steering wheel and knee, both deployed along with the seat belt being immediately tightened. I have some bruises on my body from the belt and my hand is bruised and sore from the air bag. I never contacted the steering wheel or interior surfaces of the car.
I can now tell you from experience that the deployment of the airbags is a significantly violent event and almost happens in an instant. The cabin stayed intact although the doors were jammed. I have not fully seen the car as I remained in the vehicle until transported by ambulance. I will see the car today.
I fully believe that if not for the advanced safety systems present in the vehicle I would still be in the hospital with severe injuries. The impact was at 45 mph and knocked the other vehicle (the cretin that caused it) about 50 feet across a lane of traffic and onto the median. Probably a good thing I could not get out of the car or I would have beat his sorry ass to a pulp.
Now he is in jail. I need to find out his court dates and make an appearance and implore the judge to lock him up for about 10 years. Sobbing wife and kids be damned.
Wow. I’m glad you’re okay.
Ray, I’m glad you are relatively speaking, unharmed.
Ray, glad to hear you are okay. I’ve seen a couple of accidents which would have easily ended in multiple deaths, save for the airbags doing their job. Best automotive technology ever.
Now if someone could explain how a guy with 8 prior DUIs still has a car and license, I would appreciate it. If I was in charge, he would have been in jail after the third charge, along with a lifetime ban on driving in North America. His car would have been crushed after the second. I’ve lost more than one friend to drunk drivers. There is no excuse, including sobbing wives and kids. In fact, it would be doing them a favor.
Indeed. Crush the vehicle on 2nd DUI, jail on the third, firing squad on the fourth.
A more elegant solution would be firing squad on the first DUI. That would quickly eliminate DUI one way or another.
Take care and get well soon, Mr. Ray. You have to take it easy at your advanced age and decrepitness. Still have your *tooth*. 🙂
Wow Ray, glad to hear that you are mostly ok!
I was in a head on crash outside Navasota, Texas in 1971. Both cars going 60+ mph in a curve on hwy 6, a two lane road. The oncoming car dropped a wheel off the pavement and then over-corrected coming back on the road. Into us. I heard my Dad yell, then BANG, spin and BANG again. Dad screaming at us three boys to get out as he was afraid of a fire. I had my right leg stretched out under the front seat as I was mostly asleep. The front seat collapsed and my leg was broken in two places. But I could still hobble on it. My middle brother had the seat belt up above his stomach and it came in like a knife and ripped the vein lose from his stomach. We were all wearing seat belts (Dad installed them in all cars since they came in the truck) and that saved us all. I put my faith in seat belts, not air bags.
The other car was not so lucky. They were unbelted and the 18 year old girl driving had a broken collarbone but held onto the steering wheel. Her mother came out after the first crash and was between the two cars when they hit the second time. She did not make it. I still have nightmares occasionally about her outside my car window when we crashed the second time.
There was a board certified surgeon in Navasota of all places. He tried to save the mother for four hours. Then he reattached the vein to my brother’s stomach. Then he set my leg. He charged my Dad $200 for my brother and me. That included the hospital charge also!
They had to haul our car, a 1968 Ford station wagon, off on a trailer since the wheels no longer touched the ground. Only one door would open in the back seat so my parents had to climb over the front seat back. Dad still does not know how we did not go into the eight foot deep ditch at the side of the road which would have caused us to roll.
“…had 8 prior DUI’s…”
Doesn’t mean he had 8 convictions. It is amazing what a lawyer can do to get a case dismissed or a charge reduced. Recently an acquaintance had her DUI dismissed (she was very drunk and hit a tree) and was only charged with driving to endanger. How? The arresting officer noted in the report that it happened in one town but the lawyer pointed out it was actually about 20 feet over the line into the neighboring town. That was enough for the magistrate to decide not to proceed.
I was in a bizarre non-accident this winter. The car behind me hit the car in front of me without hitting me. I was travelling in the left lane. As is my usual practice I was going with the prevailing speed and keeping a big distance between me and the car ahead. Traffic began to slow down and I began to apply my brakes. The car behind me was tailgating (and using his phone, I think) and jammed on his brakes. He began to fishtail and I thought he was going to hit me. Instead he veered onto the grassy shoulder, slid past me sideways, veered back into the left lane right in front of me and hit the car in front of me. It was close but I still had enough room to stop before hitting either of the colliding vehicles. Funny thing is we ended up stopped in our original order; a car behind me with a smashed front end, a car in front of me with a smashed rear end and my car pristine in the middle. It took the state trooper a while to figure if I was really involved. He eventually put me down as a witness.
“…firing squad on the first DUI.”
Except that sometimes someone may register at DUI levels due to faulty equipment and/or procedures. Or someone may have simply screwed up and had just one too many ounces of whatever, first time ever, and is utterly mortified and won’t do it again. We know pretty clearly who the recidivist offenders are, like the asshole who messed Ray up down there. That guy should go to the wall for sure.
Capital punishment for repeat DUI offenders? Guess so, since they won’t stop doing it and threaten our lives and limbs out here every time they’re out driving. Self-defense against potentially lethal force. Thirty years ago we’d see Boston tee-vee stations doing their “I-Team” schtick and filming people who’d just been convicted of DUI at the courthouse and had their licenses pulled. They’d go right out to the courthouse parking lot and drive away, in one case with a driver cracking open a Bud and laughing.
My point was that no sane person would then drive after drinking at all. And anyone who did and was caught would never re-offend.
Actually, as I’ve said, I think drunk driving should be perfectly legal. It’s drunk wrecking that should be severely (lethally) penalized.
Yep. I don’t care if you’re drunk, or on the phone, or smacking your kids in the back seat, or didn’t maintain your vehicle, or are just a bad driver. I don’t care why you caused the accident. Conversely, if you’re able to talk on the cell phone while putting on makeup while driving with six drinks in you, and not cause an accident, more power to ya.
The weirdest non-accident I’ve been in was when I was driving in rural South Australia, and a car was approaching from the other direction on his side of the road. He suddenly veered to my side of the road and then passed me in the dirt on the other (wrong) side, didn’t miss by much and I was thinking WTF! We both would have been doing about 100 kph so if we’d hit the results wouldn’t have been pretty.
I wish I didn’t remember all the times way back in the Neolithic when many of us drank like fish, and/or smoked or snorted or whatever, and then drove all over hell. Including a whole lot of us cops, when off-duty, and I knew a few who did it before and during their shifts. Out in Kalifornia during my USAF Security Police period, I once drank thirteen 151-rum-cokes at the NCO club and then drove down the mountain with a six-pack of Bud tall boyz; this was shortly after my return back to the World from ‘Nam (the first tour) and I was a 19-year-old sergeant. I ran the car into a ditch just before it would have hit a tree down at the bottom of the mountain; and then tried to push it out. After that I humped about ten miles back up that mountain road in driving rain and then worked a day shift. No problemo.
About ten years later I drank even more than that at a Chinese restaurant, those Suffering Bastard-type drinks, and drove home with another six-pack of Bud tall boyz. When I first got my car out of park and into traffic I was facing the wrong way, and the other off-duty cops had to turn me around the right way—for my 25-mile drive home to beautiful West Warren, MA. No problemo.
If I could go back in a time machine I’d put myself against the wall.
On the funny side of DUI, a few years ago my wife was coming back from giving a whisky tasting. In the back of the car, several hundred recently used whisky glasses. She, of course, hadn’t had anything to drink, since she was presenting. So, she come to a police checkpoint, and the police wave her over. She rolls down the window, the fumes waft out, and the officer’s eyes go wide – got a live one! She blows a 0.0. Damned thing must be busted, try again. In the end, they did believe the second 0.0 and the story to go with it…
I do disagree with “no sane person would drive after drinking at all”. It’s quite normal here to have a beer or a glass of wine with lunch. The amount of alcohol in the blood is not zero, but you are not significantly impaired. Frankly, I’m not even sure I like the “drunk wrecking should be severely penalized” any better – seems to me the issue is the wrecking, whether caused from being drunk, from being distracted, or whatever. Someone who has had multiple accidents – from whatever cause – should simply be prohibited from driving.
There are hardship cases. Here, once in a while we see some guy in a business suit toodling along in a car with special red “30 kph” warning stickers on the back. It’s someone who genuinely cannot do without their car despite a DUI or whatever. So the car has a governor put in to limit the speed, gets plastered with warning stickers, and they have to live with the result. Public shaming at its best.
Someone who has CAUSED multiple accidents – from whatever cause – should simply be prohibited from driving.
Fixed that for you. I know a couple of people who have had real bad luck with car accidents, like Ray, and who have never been at fault. No reason for them to be banned from driving.
I’ve long said car accidents should be treated like when cops shoot their gun. Take the car and driver license away from them, investigate the cause and if it’s not their fault, give them back. Otherwise banned from driving until you’ve taken driver training and passed with flying colors.
With public transportation, taxis and bicycles, I don’t believe that there is anyone who cannot do without their car. It’s just an excuse to get behind the wheel again. If you have a job that requires you to have a car, then tough shit and lose your job. Shouldn’t have gotten the DUI. Life is hard and we shouldn’t make it easier on drunks.