The Day Steam Died

by Brown, Dick

  They sat in rigid anticipation, but the only sound they heard was the hissing of radio silence. Ann repeated her distress call and again waited for a response.

  “Come on, somebody has to be out there,” she shouted into the mic.

  A male voice boomed over the speaker. “This is North Carolina State Patrol Officer, Carl Knox, what’s your forty? over.”

  Ann’s eyes grew large with puzzlement. She turned to Sylvia. “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never watched the Dukes of Hazard. Just answer him and ask him to help us!”

  Ann pressed the talk button. “Hello, Officer Knox, thank you so much for answering. This is Ann Blackmon and my husband is in the hospital in Boone in critical condition. His mother and I are trying to get there. Can you help us out of a snow bank? I don’t know what my forty is. I have no idea what that means. Can you help us? Over.”

  “I’ll try, but first I have to know your location. Over.”

  “We’re about halfway up the incline to Boone on Highway 421. We skidded into the snow bank on that last hairpin curve. I have to get to my husband. Please help us. Please,” Ann pleaded. “Over.”

  “I’m less than a quarter mile above you. Stay in your vehicle and wait for me. Don’t get out of your vehicle under any circumstances. I’ll call a tow truck and be there shortly. Over and out.”

  Relieved that help was on the way, Ann turned to Sylvia. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. Light up any time you like. At this point I don’t care about anything but getting out of this snow bank and seeing Jerry. I know you are concerned about Jerry and I apologize for my behavior.”

  “No apology necessary. I’ve been a jealous old fool ever since you two first started dating. Life turned sour when my husband left me to raise Jerry by myself. Jerry is a good and loving son. I can see he’s a wonderful husband and father, too. I guess I thought I was going to have him to myself the rest of my life. He spoiled me. He did everything for me and I didn’t want to lose that. Instead of welcoming you into my life, I resented you because you were taking away the only person in the world I trusted.” Sylvia reached over and took Ann’s hand and held it gently with both of hers. “I’m sorry for the way I have acted, even after you and Alice welcomed me into your home. I didn’t know how to share. I think I can do that now if you’ll let me.”

  “I think we can manage that. You know, you don’t have to stay in that garage apartment waiting for an invitation. You’re welcome in our house anytime.”

  Silence filled the Jeep after the emotional exchange. Ann looked out her window to watch the snow still swirling over the mountain highway. Something caught her eye. It appeared to be the tips of red cones peeking through the drifting snow. On closer inspection, Ann could see a gaping hole in the guardrail behind the red cones.

  “Oh my God! Ann’s hands flew to her face. She turned toward Sylvia. “This must be where Jerry had his accident. Look across the highway at that big hole torn in the guardrail. They said he ran off the road. This has to be the place.” Ann continued her speculation aloud. “This is where he must have gone down the mountain side, but how? Why would he have gone over the left side of the highway? He prided himself on being a good driver and even taught me how to drive on ice or snow.”

  Before she could finish her thought, a flashing yellow light from a tow truck became visible. Officer Knox’s patrol car was close behind with its oscillating blue light bar blinking through the snowfall.

  Ann leaped out of the Jeep into the wintry blast of cold wind. Frozen snowflakes stung her face. In a matter of minutes, a chain was attached to the Jeep and the winch slowly pulled it out of the snow bank. Once the Jeep was back on the highway, Ann paid the tow truck driver. She brushed the snow off her coat and climbed behind the wheel.

  Officer Knox tapped on her door with his flashlight. “Wait here until I can turn around and escort you to the hospital. That will be safer and help you get there sooner. Just follow my tail lights at two car lengths and you’ll be okay.” The officer nodded and touched his index finger to the brim of his snow-covered hat.

  The trooper’s lights flashed as his snow chains dug into the icy packed snow. They moved slowly up the steep climb. Ann and Sylvia were finally on their way to the hospital again.

  It was almost midnight. Ann worried Jerry might think they weren’t coming. Mesmerized by Officer Knox’s flashing light bar, she pondered what she might find when they finally arrived at the hospital. After seeing where Jerry had his accident, she knew it couldn’t have been good.

  Chapter 37

  “Coastline became the first company in the United States to become a totally diesel powered railway.”

  ICU trauma

  Officer Knox’s patrol car crept into the sanded emergency entrance parking lot with the monster Jeep almost touching its bumper. The tiresome trek up the slippery hill had taken twice as long as on a normal day. Ann and Sylvia’s nerves were frayed to the quick.

  Ann checked her watch—two minutes past one. It was Christmas Eve. She jumped down from her high perch driver’s seat and dashed for the emergency entrance without waiting for Sylvia.

  Exhausted and out of breath when she reached the nurses desk, Ann asked, “Where’s my husband?”

  The nurse was too busy gathering and collating patient charts to hear Ann’s request.

  This time much louder and more impatient, Ann asked which room her husband was in.

  “What’s your husband’s name?” the nurse responded, trying not to show her annoyance at Ann’s rude manner.

  “Jerry, Jerry Blackmon.”

  “Just a moment,” she replied in a strained attempt at a calm voice. The stressed nurse flipped through a tray of charts on her desk. “Your husband is in ICU, down the hall and left through the double doors. Bay 4. Doctor Thomas is the attending physician.” She nodded toward a hall crowded with teams in scrubs scurrying to attend to the overloaded emergency room patients.

  “This is it.” Ann motioned to Sylvia, who had caught up with her. She reached for the door just as a stocky, gray-haired man in blood-stained green scrubs emerged from the darkened room.

  “Are you Dr. Thomas?”

  “Yes,” he said, pulling a surgical mask from his face.

  “I’m Mr. Blackmon’s wife, Ann, and this is his mother, Sylvia. How’s my husband? Can I see him now?”

  “Mrs. Blackmon, your husband is in serious condition. We were in surgery for three hours to relieve pressure on his brain and to set his multiple fractures. He’s unconscious and on a ventilator. He has massive head trauma, and his left shoulder, arm, and leg were crushed. We were able save his arm but can’t know how much use he will regain. That will just take time. Our present concern is focused on his brain injury and how he’ll respond. We’ll know more in the next twenty-four hours.”

  Ann’s knees buckled, but Sylvia held her up. “We have to be strong now,” she said, wrapping her arm around Ann’s waist. “He needs us to be strong.”

  Gathering her courage, she stood herself up and was able to maintain her balance. “I want to see him.”

  “You may go in, but I have to warn you, his condition is critical. He can’t respond to you. Mrs. Blackmon, we’ve done all we can at this point. I’ll check in on him tomorrow morning.”

  “Thank you.” Ann’s eyes caught his bloodshot gaze before he could turn away. “It’s already tomorrow morning, doctor. Merry Christmas Eve.”

  “Thank you. Good night and get some rest.” He raised his tired arm in a half wave, putting distance between himself and the cacophony of ER doctors’ orders to assistants trying to save other victims of the storm.

  Ann regained her composure, battling fatigue and fear of what the day would bring. She locked arms with Sylvia and bravely entered the room with green and red lights flashing from
a bank of machines monitoring Jerry’s oxygen level, blood pressure, and pulse rate. A monitor with a screen whose graph line spiked with a comforting beep every time Jerry’s heart beat stood next to the head of his bead. The hissing pulsation of the respirator that was keeping Jerry alive was stationed on the other side of his bed.

  Ann clasped her hands over her mouth, holding back a scream at what she saw swaddled in bed linens. That couldn’t be Jerry. She couldn’t recognize the swollen features of her husband’s face.

  “He’s going to be fine. He’s going to be fine,” Sylvia repeated with tears streaming down her cheeks. She embraced Ann. “We have to be as strong as he is. We’ll do this together.”

  A heavy bandage wrapped the top of his head. Jerry’s face was covered with cuts on top of swollen cheeks with only slits where his eyes were supposed to be. His neck brace plunged beneath the sheets pulled up under his chin. The elevated left leg cast a long shadow across the visitor’s chairs against the wall.

  Ann cautiously walked to his bedside. Gently, she touched the smooth plaster cast that enclosed his shoulder and extended down his arm lying like a white log by his side.

  “Don’t worry,” she said as if he could hear her. She leaned down only inches from his ear and whispered, “We’re going to be here for you, no matter how long it takes. I love you.” She kissed his disfigured cheek.

  Christmas Eve

  Sylvia and Ann spent the rest of the morning catching short naps between symphonies created by Jerry’s cast of instruments. One of the chairs in his room folded out into a bed of sorts and the other was a thinly padded high back chair with no arms. ER nurses provided blankets and pillows to help make the sleep-in as comfortable as possible.

  The lights in the visitors waiting room were left on all night, including a blurry TV screen showing all night Studio One re-runs of old black and white Frankenstein movies starring Lon Chaney. When daylight finally arrived, it was welcomed by the rumpled crowd as they began to stir in search of a coffee machine.

  “Do you want coffee, Sylvia? I think my back is permanently deformed from sleeping in this foldout chair.” Ann stretched her arms and legs like a cat waking from its afternoon nap.

  She looked over at Jerry for the hundredth time. His heart monitor beeped a steady rhythm. Its soft sound provided a measure of comfort for the two women in Jerry’s life and lulled them to sleep, if only for snippets of the long night.

  “Yes, I would love some,” Sylvia said. “Black and hot. But, why don’t you go call Alice? She and the kids will be worried. I’ll freshen up a little and see if I can find some coffee.”

  Families were wandering around the hall leading to the nurse’s station, bedraggled from sitting up with loved ones or trying to manage some rest in the TV room chairs. Ann walked past the desk to the Emergency entrance door to watch the sun begin its climb into the early morning sky.

  No one was talking, which didn’t seem like Christmas Eve. It was supposed to be a happy time with people running around town doing last minute shopping for presents and Christmas dinner.

  Tears trickled down her cheeks, slowly at first, and then in cascades. She leaned facing against the wall with her face buried in her crossed arms. Her body shook uncontrollably. The shock of the horrible accident had worn off and reality had set in. She was upset because she had to force herself to look at the ghastly figure of the man who was her handsome, loving husband. She fiercely fought back any thoughts that Jerry might not wake up and pushed them behind the same solid wall in back of her mind that suppressed the hurt of her breakup with Rick.

  The convulsive sobs ebbed and left her weak, still leaning against the wall for support now as much as hiding her face from curious waiting room stares. The sleeves of her sweater were damp from her tears. The few remaining tissues she found crumpled up in her pockets were also limp with tears. Cold water splashed on her face from the nearby ladies room cleared her head so she could make an important phone call to her children. What would she tell them? They were so young.

  “Where can I find a payphone?” she asked a heavyset nurse with graying hair behind the nurse’s station.

  Her pleasant response disarmed Ann, who still felt guilty about her behavior earlier that morning.

  “About ten feet past the ladies room. Do you need change?”

  “No thanks, I have change. Thank you for asking. Your cheerful face brightens up the entire room.” Ann wished her a Merry Christmas and quickly left in search for the pay phone.

  Chapter 38

  “Most of the old steam engines were hauled to the scrap yard, except this beautiful engine that was the pride of the Coastline fleet.”

  A new day

  “Momma, how are the kids? I’m sorry I didn’t call last night, it was so late when we finally got here. He looks terrible, Momma. There are tubes and IVs stuck everywhere and his whole body looks like it’s in a cast. If his name wasn’t on the door, I wouldn’t even know it was him. We don’t know much. He has severe head trauma that required three hours of surgery and he’s still in a coma. They said he was hit by an out of control gasoline tanker and they both went over the side and down the mountain.

  Sylvia has been a jewel, I don’t know what I would have done without her. I’ll let you know more as soon as we talk to the surgeon. Have to go now. Love to you and the kids. Goodbye.

  Alice held the phone against her chest, wondering what she was going to tell the children when they woke up expecting their mommy and daddy to be home for Christmas.

  She hung up the phone then climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Behind the closed door, she pulled down the shades and knelt in the darkness beside her bed to pray.

  The clock over the nurse’s station showed it was after ten, and Doctor Thomas had just begun to make rounds. The two ladies sprang to their feet when he entered Jerry’s room. Ann had turned on the overhead light to disperse the darkness and shadows that had danced around in her imagination during the night.

  “Good morning, Doctor Thomas,” Ann said in a valiant effort to sound hopeful.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Blackmon. I’ve reviewed your husband’s chart and the good news is he remained stable through the night. The other good news is the surgery relieved the pressure on his brain, but he is still comatose. He had a severe fracture on the left frontal quadrant of his skull. There’s swelling in his neck from the impact, causing pressure on the spinal cord at the base of his brain. If he awakens from the coma, he may be paralyzed and lose his ability to speak.”

  “If he wakes up? Are you saying there is a possibility he won’t?”

  “We just can’t tell with this type of injury. We can treat his other injuries. Broken bones can be put back together. But we can only monitor injuries to the head and spinal cord, relieve the pressure, and hope it can heal on its own. The brain is the most powerful and complicated organ in our bodies. He’s a strong and healthy young man, which is in his favor.

  “We just have to watch and wait. I’ll check in on him every day. I assure you, Mrs. Blackmon, we’re doing everything we can for your husband. We’ll transfer him to a private room in the trauma wing and keep him under observation twenty-four hours a day. You’ll have more privacy and the accommodations for a prolonged stay. The best thing you can do right now is go home, see your children, and get some rest. He’s in good hands.” Doctor Thomas excused himself and left the room to visit his other patients.

  “Sylvia, we can’t go home and leave him here. What if he wakes up? I have to be here!”

  “We should take Dr. Thomas’s advice,” Sylvia said. “There isn’t anything we can do for him, and sitting here watching isn’t doing either one of us any good. And anyway, I can’t drive that Jeep back to Winston by myself. The roads are cleared now, so let’s go home, freshen up, and spend some time with the children. We can come back later this afternoon.
It’s the sensible thing to do. We can plan how we are going to do this in a relaxed atmosphere, without all the distractions.”

  “I just don’t feel right leaving Jerry. You’re his mother. You should understand that.”

  “I do, and because I’m his mother, I know we’re going to be here for him, but we need to take care of ourselves, too. You have two children at home worried about you. You need to be there for them.”

  “Okay, but we’re coming straight back with suitcases and get a motel room until he wakes up and we can take him home.”

  “Fine. Let’s get our coats and get on the road.”

  Ann pulled on her heavy parka then leaned over and kissed Jerry and whispered, “We’ll be back just as fast as we can.”

  Chapter 39

  “The Shops were reduced to skeleton crews to service the few remaining steam engine. Their job was finished.”

  Telling the children

  Anxious to see Libby and Ricky, Ann leaped from the monster Jeep as soon as they pulled into the driveway and landed hard on her right foot. It rolled over, and pain like molten lava shot up her leg. Fortunately the thick blanket of snow padded her fall. Heavy winter gloves spared her hands being ground up by the gravel that paved the driveway beneath the snow.

  “Are you okay?” Sylvia scurried around the Jeep and slipped in an effort to help Ann to her feet. Sylvia’s feet flew out from under, and she landed sitting down next to Ann.