“There’s been a penetrating chest wall stabbing. It’s Bucky Johnson. He’s been in a fight again. He has a small wound in his left upper chest. His vital signs are okay at the moment.  I’ll bring him to the surgery. I’ve organise the paramedics and a helicopter”. 

It was three in the morning. Bill, the ambulance officer, put the phone down before I could enquire any further. 

As I drove to meet him and Bucky, pictures of Bucky flashed through my mind; suturing his head after a pub brawl; fixing up a broken bone or two; watching him help an old lady across the road; his smiling face in the village shops; his laughter and his volunteering in community affairs. Bucky Johnston was a mixture all right. He liked to be in the thick of things. 

Bucky was pale and quiet – not his normal belligerent and smiling self.  His BP was within normal range. His pulse was 110 and his skin slightly clammy. Examination of his chest was suggestive of fluid in his left chest. The wound looked like a clean 3/4 inch surgical incision. 

“I think he maybe bleeding internally Bill. (As if he didn’t know) We’ll put in a line and transfuse him with plasma and I’d better put a chest drain in too.” 

“Am I dying doc? Tell me the truth mate, will ya? 

“From the position of your wound, I’d say you are going to be okay Bucky. If anything changes I’ll tell you. Okay?” He nodded. 

Bill got the gear out of the ambulance. I was feeling nervous. I’d put plenty of chest drains in before but always in a hospital setting, where there is plenty of back up and experienced help available. If things go wrong out in the sticks, it can be like a pile of dominoes falling over – one disaster after another and no back up. 

I was worrying I might damage an internal organ and make his condition worse – silly really. I knew where to put a chest drain without causing damage. Still, I worried. 

“Did you call the paramedics Bill”? He nodded.

The needle found its way into a vein with ease. Sometimes when doing this, it feels like I’m being helped. I picked up the chest drain having put some local anaesthetic in Bucky’s skin. These drains look like the very large, thick and blunt knitting needles my nearly blind mum used. I made a cut in his skin and began to push the drain in. I had to push hard.

Suddenly I felt a give and it was in. We attached it to a valved bottle and out came a pint of blood. Yes, he did have internal bleeding. 

“Bill can you ring the hospital to warn them of what we have here”? His blood pressure was dropping. We poured plasma into him.  I’m not sure how many bottles. We put up a second and third intravenous line. 

His BP came back up and his pulse slowed. Things were coming under control. I felt good. I felt in command. I heard the helicopter coming. 

“Am I going to be alright doc?

“I think so Bucky. Your vital signs have stabilised. I can’t be sure what the damage is. There’s no more blood draining. The wound is not near your heart. I’m sure you will be okay.” 

“Christ, I hope so, I’m supposed to be getting married at the weekend”.

We put Bucky into the ambulance and took him to the landing spot. The helicopter was hovering above us. It was silhouetted by a full moon.  Its bright spot-light was on and the pilot was descending slowly and cautiously.

There were quite a few trees around and some over head power lines. The pilot was aiming for a circle made up of cars with their headlights on.  I was in the ambulance with Bucky. He was starting to chat a bit. 

“I need a pee”, he stated pleadingly. “I am bursting” 

“You’ll have to hang on mate or just be a baby”, I replied.

As the chopper landed, I got out of the ambulance to meet the team. They, the paramedics, came out on the run with all their sophisticated gear. These were the top guns, the hot shots. They were good and they thrived on disasters. The scene reminded me of a Vietnam war movie. I’d be happy to have these guys around, if I was in an accident. 

“He’s in the ambulance and he’s stable, ” They ran on.

“He’s not here”, someone shouted above the noise of the chopper. “There’s no one in the ambulance doc. “Where the bloody hell is the patient?” 

I ran over, no Bucky in sight. Where had he gone? 

We found him behind a tree. He had an embarrassed grin on his face. He was holding three bottles of plasma up in the air and his chest drain was under his arm pit. He was having a pee.”

Looks like you have over transfused him doc. He’s got an excess of fluid on board that he needs to get rid of it”. 

Everybody was laughing including Bucky. He walked to the helicopter and climbed in. It was now such a calm scene. I wondered whether all the drama had been really necessary. 

As the helicopter lifted off, I remembered a man with a similar small wound in his chest, a few inches closer to the heart, who walked into accident and emergency aided by a mate. He was talking to me one minute and was dead five minutes later. 

Bucky didn’t make it the wedding. She’d changed her mind.

commentary 

If the knife wound had been a couple of inches lower, Bucky would probably have died. As the knife came at him, if he’d moved differently,  if the one plunging the knife had been more accurate…. Life is full of ifs. A moment of uncontrolled rage, a tiny almost invisible wound in the chest, death for one and prison for the other.

Good drug alcohol. I’ve patched up many wounds that people have had inflicted on them by others or themselves; wives and husbands; best friends fighting over a girl and women scratching each other. This particular type of activity is in all social classes. One well to do woman told me she’d stayed home for two weeks, so her friends wouldn’t know she’d been beaten up. They all thought she’d had pneumonia. She was very upper crust. Women hide their wounds. Men go around bragging, “Look what she did to me, the bitch”. 

An older man, a therapist, once told me of a male client who kept referring to his wife as a bitch. He asked this fellow if he could give him a difference between himself and a dog. The man kept coming up with similarities to this question. It took him five minutes to come up with a difference, to distinguish himself from a dog. So be aware all you blokes out there of the messages you are giving your subconscious, when you call your wife a bitch! 

There are more ‘creative’ ways of seeking revenge than physical violence.  One woman cut all the buttons and flies off her man’s trousers, shirts, jackets and suits. Finally she cut the fat end from all his ties and left.  Another woman in England went to her man’s holiday cottage. She dialled the speaking clock in New York and left the phone off the hook. He ended up with a bill for a few thousand pounds. What wonderful pieces of drama and revenge. 

What do you do?

I punish by sulking. Actually, I didn’t call it sulking. I used to say things like  ‘I need time on my own’. I think back in the day I could sulk for a week or two. 

Tish and I attended a week long live-in psychodrama group. The leader was a friend. Tish and I alternated days participating in the group and cooking. One day I was the cook. It was lunch time and I was sulking. The leader noticed I wasn’t my normal ebullient self. 

“What’s the matter Andrew?”

“Nothing!”

“How come you are so quiet?”

He kept badgering me and he was not going to let me off the hook. 

So finally I said, “I am sulking”.

“How long have you been sulking?”

“Since this morning?”

“How long will you be sulking for?”

“Oh I don’t know”

“How long do you normally sulk for?”

“I don’t know.”  Again he persisted. He cornered me.

Finally I said, “anything from a few hours to a couple of weeks?”

“How long do you think you will sulk this time, taking your past experience as a guide?”

“I don’t know”.

Finally he accepted I wasn’t going to answer how long I was going to sulk for; though I was feeling some loosening of my tightness.

He then asked me, “what would help you get out of this sulk?”

I was now feeling the ridiculousness of my behaviour but was sort of still holding on.

“Well! I guess if Tish threw a bucket of cold water over me that would get me out of it”.

“Will you give her permission?

“No not just yet.”

“Well when then?” Again he persisted and would not let me off the hook. He had me hooked all right.

“Finally I gave in and said, ‘In half an hour?”

Okay. It’s not 12.30. So at 1pm Tish can throw a bucket of cold water over you?” I nodded. “Tish go and get a bucket of cold water”.

At this point I burst out laughing and so ended my sulk.

It was also a moment of insight and understanding. My sulking, my withdrawing, my need to be on my own etc etc was anger stewed into a disguised form of punishment. It was my way at getting back at Tish for perceived misdemeanours on her part.

How do you get revenge and pretend that you aren’t? All too often we are presenting rationally and politely, when revenge and punishment are operating in a ‘cleverly’ disguised fashion.

Who me? I hear you thinking. Yes, you; all of us. 

Unfinished business in relationships can lead to nasty outcomes and maybe even ill health. We look at Bucky and his mates. We judge them for their uncouth ways, their overt expression of anger and its destructiveness, when maybe we are killing our loved ones in more sweet and loving ways!