Spring, 1980. My cousin, in his senior year of high school, was an umpire for the local Little League. One of his duties at the end of the night was to turn off the field lights. The main shut-off was a large switch mounted on the side of a large electrical box, surrounded by smaller switches for individual fields. These switches are notoriously difficult to throw, possibly to prevent anyone from casually flipping one. You have to seriously want the power on/off to throw one of these things.

B.J. (he knows who he is) grabbed the main switch with all his might, but was unable to budge it. Several attempts were for naught, and he was getting tired. Standing back to catch his breath, he observed the situation while trying to figure out what to do. He noticed that below the main switch - which was located fairly high up on the side of the box - were a couple of smaller switches low on the side of the box. Using the lower switches as toe-holds, he climbed up onto the side of the box and grabbed the main switch again. This time, leaning back and jerking at the switch with all his body weight, he finally succeeded in throwing it.

During his various attempts to do his duty, he had failed to notice a nearby length of rebar protruding about two feet out of the ground, vertically. As he lost his grip, he fell backward onto the rebar, and found himself in an odd sitting position, unable to rise. An innocent bystander (there WAS a witness) offered a helping hand and lifted B.J. off of the rebar.

Probing carefully with his finger, he located the hole in his pants. Probing further, he ascertained that there were no more than the requisite single hole in his backside. Figuring that there was no harm done, he sashayed home and went to bed.

Several hours later, he awoke with a terrible pain in his tummy. He crawled into his mother's bedroom and awoke her. After recounting the events of the previous evening, my shocked Aunt asked him how much had "gone in". B.J. estimated about three feet, whereupon my Aunt pointed out that the rebar would have been poking out of his chin.

Throwing him into the car, she raced to the hospital, where surgeons discovered that the rebar had pierced his colon some thirteen inches in. After stitching him back up, my cousin had to wear a colostomy bag for the last month of high school, smelling oddly of a nursing home.

On the way to the hospital that night, my cousin pointed out the silver lining to the evening's cloud. "What could POSSIBLY be good about any of this?" my Aunt demanded. Through moans of pain, B.J. pointed out, "I'm no longer a virgin!"

A lawsuit with the electric company was settled out of court for some $40,000, a fortune to an eighteen year old. B.J. dug up the rebar and kept it as a souvenir for years.

Submitted on 12/22/2013

Submitted by: Anonymous
Reference:

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Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Yikes! B.J. is lucky to be alive. Did it ever occur to him that the main breaker might have had some sort of locking mechanism to keep it from being flipped accidentally? Thanks for the story.

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account

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