You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Explosive brain surgery.
There’s never a good time to get a wake up call from work. And when it’s 1:3o on a Sunday morning, you know it is not going to be good.
The Metro Bomb tech answers the phone. He is bleary eyed and he probably has to think twice about what he has just heard. “A bomb where?”
The man is told there is a patient at the local emergency room with a possible explosive device in his skull. The bomb tech has worked a lot of crazy calls, he will later tell me this is “one for the books.”
He gets to the E.R. and the doctors show him the CT scan. It shows a 2 inch cylindrical shadow should not be there. The man blew his skull wide open with a fireworks discharge and now neurosurgeons need to operate.
The concern? What if they move the device and it is active? What if they have to cauterize the wound and they touch the device, will it explode? Will the patient’s head burst like tiffany glass under the weight of a tractor tire?
Afraid to proceed, the surgical team asks the bomb tech to scrub in.
The bomb tech will tell me it is like a movie. He says everyone is professional and appreciative of his technical guidance.
And when surgeons crack open the man’s skull, they find the device. The bomb tech tells them it is inert and safe to remove.
Wow. Can you imagine?
A few hours earlier you are asleep. Next thing you know, you are peering into a man’s brain hoping not to find a bomb.
How the hell did this happen? I go to the remote country location where the incident begins.
A man answers the door. He works 3rd shift and he is wearing his pajamas. He is friendly, wiping sleep from his eyes, but he is not that anxious to help me.
Juan is a good guy, he says. He is giving people the thumbs up in the hospital.
That’s encouraging I tell him.
I ask him to do an interview, tell me about his friend. He declines the offer, but tells me I can go into his back yard where I find the spent mortar tube for the standard commercial grade artillery shells.
The discarded fireworks are in a 20 gallon garbage can surrounded by empty beer cans.
If ever there were a poster for “Fire works and booze don’t mix” this story would be it.
Suddenly the man comes to the back yard. He is staring at me. He is not angry. He is not anxious. He is just watching.
“Everything Ok?” I ask.
“Just watching,” he says.
I look at the man. It is obvious he cares about his friend. I decide to ask him to interview one more time.
“Come on man. Tell me about your buddy.”
“I look terrible,” he says looking down at his rumpled night shirt.
“Go put on a nice shirt and tell me something nice about your buddy,” I say ordering him to do the interview. “Tell me that he is doing well in the hospital. Tell me that kids can learn from his mistake. Let’s generate some prayers for him.”
The man stares at me. I can see he is now awake, his brain stewing like so much pudding on boil.
“Ok. I’ll be right back,” he says.
“Nice job,” my photographer whispers as I commence with my stand up. I am holding the spent mortar tube. I stare into the camera and as I raise the device over my head, I say, “Witnesses tell me the man loaded the artillery shell upside down, then lit it, and then raised the tube over his head so it fired into his skull.”
By this time the man returns. He is wearing a nice shirt and he has combed his hair.
“Tell me about Juan,” I say.
“Juan is a good guy, but he is crazy.” He tells me that he thought his friend was dead. The police report says the shell blew open his skull like a cracked egg. It says he was bleeding profusely and there was brain matter everywhere.
Yuk.
“He is improving, doing great. they are surprised he is doing so well,” he says. “I pray for him every day,” the friend says.
I thank the man and get in the car. It’s another journalistic walk off homer. It is satisfying to know you have an exclusive of colossal magnitude!
“Wow, what a story,” I say to my photographer.
“I knew we’d get him to talk,” he says confidently.
I laugh. “I’m glad you were confident,” I retort. “I pretty much forced him to do it.”
“Yeah, right,” my photog says driving away.
Wow is right.
A bomb in a man’s brain. I’m surprised we got anyone to talk about a guy who should have died.
Life’s Crazy™