Chest Tube

He was movie star handsome. A dead-ringer for a young Hugh Jackson.
So let's just call him Hugh.
Just 24 years old.
His shirt was buttoned down to expose his chest. Full six pack present.
There was just one near fatal flaw to Hugh's look of perfection.
That was a horizontal plastic box sticking out of his chest with tubes connected to it.
It's purpose was to keep his left lung lung inflated.
If it doesn't work, and we will know that tomorrow.... he will need lung surgery for the deflated lung he got when he as hit.

Hugh was driving, his 4 and 6 year old sons in the booster seats behind him in his fully paid for 99 Toyota Corolla, with only 75,000 miles on it, he said. A young woman came from his right, and ran a stop sign. Fortunately there were plenty of witnesses, including an ambulance behing the car that ran the stop sign.
Hugh was airlifted to Harborview, the kids taken to Mary Bridge. Mom, Hugh's ex met the kids there.
It happen Friday, 3 days ago. The hospital send Hugh home after five hours with the thing in his chest because he had no medical insurance or Personal Injury Protection on his auto insurance. I met him yesterday, Sunday, in his living room and handed in his case this morning.

After visiting Hugh Sunday morning, I headed north to " Deliverlance Land"at the base of the Cascade Mountains.
Dad, the client the attorney sent me to see, was rear-ended by a drunk driver and can't work because he blew three discs in his back and one in his neck.
Everyone in the house, Mom, Dad and two kids, including the 6 month sneezing baby had a "cold' they said.
I kept hearing swine snorfing in in my head.

I decided not to shake hands. They bought my excuse that I didn't want to expose them to anything. I decided to to leave my pen they used to sign their documents behind.
And when I got in my car, I swathed myself in the antibiotic hand stuff in my vehicle.
Then... wrote a note to self.
"Get swine flu shot. Tell Doctor my job is just like a health care worker and I should be one of the ones who get the vaccine first. "
The swine flu is heading here to Seattle mas rapido from Vancouver B.C.

I made the 7:30 ferry home last night (Sun), wrote up the cases, assembled the photos which I processed at stops throughout the day, wrote up the notes, the invoices then climbed in the sack by midnight.

Made the 7:50 ferry out this morning, dropped the cases at the law firm in Seattle. Then met one more injury victim and her husband in Federal Way. She was 7 months pregnant and a passenger, her husband driving, at the time of the hit. The seat belt pressed hard on her belly. The airbag deployed. The baby's heartbeat is slow now, they are watching it closely.

And then, there's tomorrow.

A brain injury in the morning....
a trip the vet for my rescue pup Bubba who has an ear infection...
a visit to a collision yard to photograph "Hugh Jackman's" car...
then to the the law firm to drop off cases.
After that, dinner with a friend in downtown Seattle....
then to UW by 6:00 to meet the new students in this years P.I. class.

I teach spring semester, though we three teachers work as a team. And this year, we have more students than we ever have had. At the beginning of every school year, all three teachers sit with the students, we go around the room, get to know them, we hear where they came from and why they want to be P.I.s. It's always fascinating because we have students of all ages, from the 20's to a couple 75 years old. We also tell our stories.

I am writing this kind of day-to-dayness... because I figure its better than writing nothing.
And after all, this is a diary... albeit the Diary of A Private Eye.

So tonight I say:
Dear Diary,
I am wiped out.
Weary to the bones.
Smelling the chicken thighs coated in olive and garlic slowing roasting near the potatoes.
I closed my last case file of the night before writing this blog,
Time to eat and then...
in just a few hours, close my eyes.

Problem is, we P.I.'s dream about cases.
And we wake up thinking about them.
So it never really stops.