The day Jase almost died

Jase's post yesterday made me think of another story that happened while dad was playing softball.

During one of dad's church-league softball games when we were little the four of us were playing on some dirt piles a few hundred yards from the field. The dirt piles were the result of a big hole that had been dug that would eventually be used as the foundation for a new concession stand and bathroom facility. We ended up in a dirt-clod-throwing "game" (it was always a game until Jase -- I mean someone -- got hurt) with a kid we didn't know who was standing down in the hole. The dirt clods were, for the most part, just chunks of dirt that would break into dust if and when they hit you, so it was no big deal. At one point the kid in the hole threw one that was coming straight at my face. Since I have the reflexes of a jungle cat, I ducked. I turned around to see that the clod had hit Jase right in the head... and that this clod was apparently more of a rock covered in dirt that did NOT break into dust when it hit him. He started crying. I turned back to the kid that had thrown the rock. He had a horrified look on his face. I tried to reassure him that Jase would be fine. "Don't worry about it, he cries all the time," I said (which was true).

*The next sentence is a little gross, so if you have a weak stomach, skip down to the next italics.


I turned back to Jase to see blood like a geyser gushing from his head wound with every beat of his heart.

*If you skipped that sentence because you have a weak stomach, here's the jist: Jase was bleeding.


Joel grabbed Jase and I ran ahead toward the ball field to get dad's attention. Dad was playing left field, so we stood at the fence yelling his name (well, we were probably yelling "Dad!" which isn't his real name). He tried to wave us off (we knew we weren't supposed to bug him during the game unless it was an emergency), but then he glanced over and saw Jase. He did a double-take, yelled "Time out!" to his pitcher, and hurdled a 10-foot chain-link fence like it was 6 inches high (it was quite impressive), because we were all pretty sure that Jase was about to die before our very eyes.

Dad ended up borrowing an extra t-shirt from someone in the crowd (stealing is probably a better term, since I'm pretty sure they didn't want it back) and pressed it to Jase's head to stop the bleeding, which it did... eventually. It was a pretty heavy-duty head gash. Dad gave Jase the option of going to the hospital for stitches or driving out to camp where mom was working that day. Since our family's general rule is, "Who needs stitches? It'll eventually heal itself," Jase chose to go see mom.

Jase's head wound eventually healed (I think... can you confirm that, Jase?), and he didn't die that day. Mom made him feel better than stitches ever would have. And that's the end of my "the day Jase almost died" story.