Part 4
Conclusion – things
that go bang
planting trees on reclaimed stripmine land at hellbender park , beaver creek
I am sure he meant, and I am assuming it was a
he, shotguns, pistols, etc.. But when
someone says that to me, one of my first thoughts is something like dynamite or
a really big bang where you see hundreds of thousands of tons of earth lifting into
the air and crashing over against a strip pit wall. Boulders the size of trucks
hurtling through the air and the rumbling noise, much like a thunderstorm
rumbling below your feet as the dust settles and the landscape is forever
changed . All the flora and fauna temporarily killed, that took millions of
years to evolve and is piled in stockpiles to be spread in a thin layer to
reseed later. Trees, some older than most of us, earlier chipped or lumbered.
The devastation on the likes you have never seen before, hiding just up the
mine entrance road. And now this need to pull coal from the ground to light our
lights, and power our days managed to get me, to shut me down in my early days
and permanently change my way of life, some of it for the good, and some for
the worse.
The pain was
persistent and running down both legs , and I had a time getting out of the semi-trailer
and kind of half dragged myself to the office and went in to see my supervisor
and informed him I was hurt , and needed to see a doctor and that I was headed
home. He headed to the back of the office and talked to the site manager, and
after about fifteen minutes returned, and asked how bad the pain was. I told
him it hurt like hell, and it was affecting my legs. I needed to go to the doctor.
His response was
that they had a delivery this afternoon of about 3 ton of dynamite and he was
wondering if maybe that I sat around and did some light duty work that I may
feel better by the afternoon, and they would send someone with me to help
unload the boxes of dynamite.
Again I asked him
to go to the doctor and again he came back with the lame excuse that if I left
my job, I may be in jeopardy as they had no one else qualified to drive dynamite
to make the delivery. He said as soon as I was back that I could go to the
doctor if I wished. I told him I would try. And he went and found me some
paperwork to do and I sat in a chair till around noon as I had been at work
only about a half hour, when whatever it was in my back snapped as I didn’t know
at the time.
Around noon they
had the truck loaded and reports of an approaching snow storm and hazardous
conditions was expected and conditions there at work were already bad. I expressed
an interest in seeing the doctor again and forgetting the trip as the roads was
bad and I was justified in not making the delivery due to road conditions. Again
I was left with the impression that the Amish needed their dynamite to blow up
stumps in Berlin on a snowy day as he was handing me my paperwork to head out
the door.
He said as I was
about to walk out the door, “Oh by the way, have a safe trip out there.” I kind
of leaned in the door way allowing the snow and wind to rush through and just
looked at the dumbass, and shook my head and turned and embraced the wind.
I climbed in the
truck and a friend of mine Dave Gintz was riding with me and I asked him if
everything was checked out. He was concerned about me and my back and rightly
so. I briefed him on what they had said to me and how it might be my job if I was
to not make the trip. I could hardly shove the clutch in and engage the gear as
we took off. The roads were as bad as the warnings and the closer we were to Berlin
out Rt. 39 the worse the road was. This was back before the new four lanes went
in. trekking slowly as I never knew when you might encounter a slow car, or a
horse and buggy heading up the slow winding roads , and the lack of salt and
slippery roads made travelling in a truck especially worse when hauling
dynamite to boot. A car sliding sideways on these hills was a
possibility and I without the momentum of travelling forward would be dead in
the water in the middle of the road. At least I had part of a load and weight
over the rears for traction, coming back I would be empty and conditions would
be worse. I discussed that maybe we should just go in the ditch and see how
Atlas is going to respond to that when the State Highway Patrol hears that they
forced an injured driver on to the road in a known snowstorm with a load of
dynamite on. Dave and I laughed about it, but I would never have intentionally driven
off the road to prove a point.
I managed to get
to my destination and we unloaded and at times returning I felt the truck
sliding as I maneuvered it up and down the hills at almost a crawl by now. The roads
had been salted but slush was building up. It was making my trip harder and my
legs weaker as I drove along. Finally I managed to pull the truck into the yard
and we parked it. Dave asked if I need a ride to the doctor. I said thanks no, I
just drove a truck full of dynamite 60 miles through the snowstorm , surely I could make it 7 miles to the doctor
in a car. I went into the office to turn in my paperwork and they still wanted
me to sit around and wait till quitting time. At this point I was dragging my
right leg as my back had swollen and the pain was worse than I had ever
experienced.
I told them I did
as they asked but I needed to see the doctor as soon as possible that if I waited
he wouldn’t have office hours and I would have to go to the hospital to seek treatment.
They finally let me go after telling me to make sure that I checked out early
on my time and to note my timesheet. They never did pay me for the time I went
to the doctor. And I had to provide my own transportation as they surely were
not prepared to lift a finger to help me.
The doctor x
rayed me as soon as I arrived and sent me to the hospital that night telling me
I had ruptured a disc and that I needed traction. i called my house and I was
married at the time and told them I needed to go to the hospital and to get
things ready. In an hour I was at Aultman and in a bed in a room with weights
hanging off my legs. I had my wife call my foreman and explain why I would not
be at work tomorrow and she did and he said that I was to call when the doctor
released me. The doctor never released me for a year and a half it took to get
me to any kind of a point that I could drive again as a commercial truck
driver.
I called them
about returning to work and in the meantime by now I kind of had an idea what
their response was going to be after denying my Workmen’s Compensation for over
a year requiring me to obtain a lawyer and in the meantime force my family on
welfare and food stamps to get along with a meager living allowance and no
money to buy anything. Didn’t really figure they gave a shit and they didn’t.
But I needed to go back and see what their response was before anyone would
help me. They said at that time the only job they had available was a semi
driving job and that they would check me out on it.
It was a waste of
time as they had no intention of hiring me back on, as these guys had found a
way to get rid of me. I was given the chance but it was up to my foreman as to
my driving abilities and he said that I wasn’t a good enough driver to operate
a semi. Good enough to carry dynamite on a public road with passerby’s much
like you in a snowstorm with bad road conditions and a bad back. Did I mention the bad back? But suddenly not
good enough to drive for them, anymore. I should have dumped that truck in the
ditch and hauled the dynamite into the field and then called the State Highway
Patrol , I am sure Atlas would have done anything that day to make it all go away. But I in
fear of losing my job didn’t realize I was going to lose it anyhow, so I tried
to help them out and myself I thought at the time and do the job.
volunteers all trying to make a difference on some reclaim
Their response
was typical of most businesses and now there is some legislation that will allow
one to seek punitive damages if the employer acts negligently in causing your
accident. They exacerbated an already inflamed injury by trying to postpone my
visit to the doctor. My lawsuit was
filed before this legislation took effect. Admonished by Workmen’s Compensation
privately in the case files was the worse they received. In the meantime I lost
my job , my house , my ability to bring home a decent pay , my patience with
just about everyone close to me, and started spiraling even further down with
prescription drugs and booze.
I managed to finally
take control of my life after about 2years after my accident after receiving
help to return to college to be retrained. At first they said I was untrainable
due to my experience. But finally after convincing them I was unable to return
to truck driving full time that it was the worst thing for a back on a log term
basis, and then they figured I was worth a shot and finally helped me get into
Civil Engineering at Stark Tech. This was where I started to finally turn
myself around. Eliminated some problems and moved on with my life.
Since that day
from hell 125 though there is not one minute I haven’t felt pain of some kind
in my back. You learn to accept and move on. I just hope in reading all this
and what went on with me , that some manager or some worker or some friend, will after having been injured , seek help to
see how bad you are before playing games with your life or someone else’s. It wasn’t
just my injuries that day that was affecting me but it was everyone on the road
that day and there was plenty, as well my captive friend Dave that I allowed to
be put in danger not knowing the extent of my injuries, and driving down that
snowy road. For what? I still lost my
job by no fault of my own. My life was wrecked for a while and for what? So Atlas‘s profit margin was still in
the black.
Stuff happens when
you work and it is all how you react and your employer reacts, that either
makes it a problem or a solution. Solutions are always much better as they
require cooperation of both parties. I had no choice but to lawyer up when they
refused to pay me Workmen’s Compensation. I was just trying to live. They were
pretty well off and flourishing.
Also don’t know
what someone does with more than one gun, I guess sit around and clean it and
hope you can use it someday to kill something. I mean what other good are they.
You set up targets to shoot holes in them. They represent death and destruction
to me much as the real bang of dynamite signals to mark the destruction of
thousands and if not millions of acres annually that are being turned upside
down and inside out in the name of progress. It all signals mankind’s death of
our planet to some extent. Whittle a piece her and a piece there and eventually
we have nothing to whittle on. If buying guns is your thing, have at it, to
each his own. But to me I believe in living, not only myself but everyone
around me. Even my enemies or the guy that buys things that goes bang. We all
should live a full life as much as the animals that are out there. We are all
part of something bigger and we are not making any more planets. So we better
take care of the one we have, as long as we have it. How many things do you
need that go bang?
Apparently quite
a bit, I see it all the time on craigslist. Seems to me with all the crime, Craigslist
might be the first place a sheriff sitting alongside the road talking on a cell
phone might look to find what was missing last night. A maybe something that
goes bang.
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