Impromptu Surgery

Matthew writes about getting a nail in his foot.

                It was a hot day, in mid August that summer.  I had been forced to work in the sun all day long, and was now finally moving to the shade, or what was left of the quickly disappearing spot, but on the roof in the summer, any shade is welcomed.

                A little background.  I was working for a roofer in Osky that summer, and on this particular day, we were working, what we called an easy.  This meant that the roof was not steep at all, and tearing the old roof off, the worst job, had gone decently well, no room to complain.  I had been working under my brother, feeding him the shingles, when we got to putting the roof back on.  I always ended up with this job, mainly because he was my brother, and no one else would work with him, or he wouldn’t work with them. And so, since I seemed to get along well enough with him, that meaning there was no dissension among the workers, got to feed him.  Now to the hot part.  By the time we got around to shingling, it was the hottest part of the day.  I was still feeding my brother shingles, and for some reason, he decided that we should work in the sun.  Times like this were the reasons that nobody wanted to work with him.  There were two sections on the house, each subdivided up after that. One of the main sections was completely in the shade, with three smaller sections on it.  Perfect amount for each gunner (the guy running the nail gun, of which there was three.).  But no, in the sun we worked, until finally we moved to the shade.  By this time, there was a limited amount of shade left, and so I ended up standing right above him, in a sense.  We were laying the first row on the roof, the only part that my brother had his back to me while nailing them in.  After a while of feeding, you get used to handing them after you hear the nail gun go four times. Four nails to a shingle, drop him another to nail down.  So since this was not my first rodeo, instead of watching him closely, I was admiring the clients back yard.  Not very out of the ordinary, I hear the nail gun go, the only problem, was that this was the fifth time on this shingle, and this one was received along with a sharp pain in my left big toe.  I did not know yet what had happened, but by instinct I let some words fly.

                “Okay, Micah.”  This was said very calmly, and compared to the pain I was feeling, was quite milder than I expected. (Many jokes have been made about this initial response) I looked down, and confirmed what I had expected to see by this time.  There was a roofing nail sticking out of my foot, a little over a quarter of an inch.  The pain intensifies and I start to do the deep breath walk around.  By this time the others on the roof had started to notice my plight.  One of the veterans, (he had worked there the longest) immediately dialed my boss, who was away on business, dumping the old shingles, and had to meet someone uptown, and told him what happened.  The others gathered around me, and one of them started cutting a hole in my shoe around the nail.  I got a little worried during this, considering the knives that we are required to carry, and meant to cut shingles, and are insanely sharp, and would do more damage to me than the nail. The veteran had gotten off the phone, and gave me the options.

                “Rusty said to either go to the hospital or perform surgery.”  If you have not guessed, this meant that someone was going to pull the nail out right where I was.  The veteran looked at me, and all I said was

                “Yank it.”

                I did not have much to say during these events, as you can tell.  Anyways, right after I said this, one of them got a vice-grips, and clamped it on the nail.  The veteran stood beside me, and crooked his arm to me like he was going to walk me down the aisle.

                “You can hit this arm if you need to.” We were so caring of each other.  The one with the vice-grips looked at me and said,

                “You ready?”  Never before, and to date, never after have those words meant so much, even though I had not even replied, when one of them grabbed my leg near the ankle and the other gave a quick jerk.  This is the point in the story, where I would like to point out that the nails we use come in rolls of about 104 nails.  These nails are connected with a wire, and they act like little barbs when inside your toe, so instead of a clean in and out, I remember feeling both of the wires come out.  I did not need to hit the arm offered, though I was very close to some loud profanity.  The owner of the house had found out what had happened, and had some gauze to cover the battle wound with.  By the time we had it wrapped, only five minutes had passed, and this was about the time that the boss-man came roaring up the drive.  How he made it to where we were in five minutes is still a mystery to all the workers.  The one who had pulled out the nail, offered up the vice-grips, with the nail still clamped in it.  I still have the nail it is by my trophies that I have won in my life, and means more to me than any of them.  It was truly amazing, the shot that my brother was.  He managed to shoot my toe, miss the bone, go into the toe right beside, and miss the bone on that one too.  It is obvious that someone had my back.

                One more note, the next day, I was back at work, and mid-morning one of the other workers received a picture message from his friend on another roofing crew.  He had accidentally shot himself with what I believe was a deck screw, straight through the bone and had to go to the hospital.  That just shows the superiority of R&R Roofing and Home Improvements, not only in roofing, but on the job surgery.