As I tore off the thin layer of skin that had been peeled off an area about the size of a loonie off the top of my foot, I couldn’t help but think back to earlier that morning. I had specifically asked myself, "should I put on my work boots, or can I get away with just wearing my sandals?"
Three guesses as to which choice I made.
The wrong one.
As the dermis (the subflooring of the skin, as it were) quickly turned bright, angry red, having never been meant to be exposed to the air, I hobbled to the front door of the cabin, calling my daughter to get my extensive first aid kit from my SUV.
What an idiot, I thought, over and over again.
Over the last 10 years, I have gone to more safety seminars, speeches and conferences than you can shake a stick at. I’ve sat through day-long conferences in Regina, Weyburn and Estevan. I’ve scribbled notes at safety stand downs. I’ve filled entire sections of papers with stories from the now-defunct South East Environment and Safety Seminar. I’ve attended almost every event Enform, now Energy Safety Canada, has held in southeast Saskatchewan since I moved here.
It had gotten to the point where I was simply tired of hearing the message . I’d even moaned to a few people about the fact these events often bring someone who has been horribly disfigured or maimed because of their own lack of knowledge, lack of attention, or that of others. There’s a small cadre of unfortunate souls who have endured these life-altering, and almost life-ending incidents, and now make a business of speaking at these safety events to warn others. Some have been burned, others electrocuted or chemically burned. One was even shot in the face by his son while hunting. I’d been to so many of them, I just didn’t want to hear it anymore.
Yet here I was, building a wheelchair ramp for my step-dad, no less, hobbling to sit on the deck and administer first aid to myself.
The wheelchair ramp is necessary because my step-dad had his lower right leg amputated six years ago due to an infection in his foot. He’s diabetic, and so am I. I quite literally nearly had a heart attack building a wheelchair ramp for my parents’ home six years ago. The heart attack came four weeks later. Now, he needed a ramp at the cabin, and I was building it. And in a weird circle of events, I now gave myself a prime spot for a potential infection, which, if it got away from me, could lead to an amputation for me! (Long-term diabetes is a leading cause of amputations, if not the top one, in this country).
As I’ve learned from these seminars, it isn’t just the action that causes the injury, but the choices before, sometimes long before.
In this case, I was installing the cement blocks to support the ramp. This meant digging out two inches of sod, replacing that with a similar amount of gravel, and tamping it before installing and levelling the block. Not a lot of gravel, mind you, just a few shovelfuls.
I was using a small plastic wheelbarrow to move the sod and gravel. When I dumped the gravel, the wheelbarrow kicked back. The plastic channel holding the axle just caught the top of my exposed foot in my sandal, scraping off the epidermis, or top layer, of skin.
I had packed my work boots. They were in the truck. I could have put them on. I thought about it. I specifically chose not to.
This, from a guy who rarely wears his wedding ring, should he end up on an oilfield site in the course of work on any particular day. This is the same guy that insisted everyone wear safety glasses building the cabin deck last summer, and gloves while handling wood.
So here I am a week later. I’ve been applying topical antibiotic regularly. My wife, the emergency room nurse, has probably tired of me sticking my foot in her face twice a day, making sure it’s properly inspected. And while it seems to be healing, there is the constant worry that it could get away from me, like it did for my step-dad.
In writing this, I realize I, too, am that guy who got injured, and is now preaching the safety message. Fortunately, my injury is just a booboo. I don’t want to think about what they’ve gone through every single day.
Next time, I will wear my boots.
— Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net.
