Friday, March 25, 2011

Be Prepared!

I wrote the other day here about how I almost got stranded with my jeep -30 miles from home -when the latch on the driver's door wouldn't fasten but thankfully, with some information I got from my ex-brother-in-law auto mechanic and a hand from two young fellows in the vicinity, I was able to get that problem taken care of and got back home without any more problems. Ken checked out the door the next day and said he put some stuff on it -probably that good old WD-40 or something along those lines -to keep the latch well lubricated and in working condition for me.

But you know, that brings my mind to thinking then too about other issues - things that can happen to a person when you're on the road, whether you're running a quick errand not that far from home or on a longer trip - such as all the trips my kids and I have had to take over the past five years down to Pittsburgh and back to the hospitals and doctors there.

We've been very fortunate in that we've never had to call for emergency assistance on any of those trips. There was the one instance a year ago this May though when the ER department of the hospital in Clearfield DID have the local ambulance transport me down to Pittsburgh when they thought I had an obstruction in my bowel and also, when they started to administer the first chemo treatment back in early September at the Cancer Clinic and I had a severe allergic reaction to that particular type of chemo and they had to have an ambulance come and transport me from the Clinic up the hill to the emergency room of the hospital -not even 1/4 of a mile away!

But even so, it is something to stop and think about how a person would handle a situation if you were traveling and were in an accident. How would you or someone else traveling with you arrange then to get back home if your vehicle was badly damaged or totalled? And, with Mandy and me, suppose we were on one of those trips and had the kids with us -how would we get them back home then too?

Just some food for thought you know about some things many of us never think about.

3 comments:

Maggie May said...

One of the things I like about living in the city is that I can generally get anywhere I want by bus or train or by foot.
All the major hospitals are within a very short distance away. I don't know how I'd have coped with all our hospital appointments over the last year or so if we didn't have public transport.
Glad that you were able to get the jeep door fixed.
Maggie X

Nuts in May

CiCi said...

The nearest hospital is just under 20 miles from here. You pose good questions in this post. I have AAA for roadside car assistance but have not had to put it to the test since we moved to this little town.

Anonymous said...

It is indeed food for thought. Mobile phones have been a Godsend in recent years but unfortunately, there are many areas, particularly in the north of England where I live, that have a really bad signal.

CJ xx