Introduction

Sometimes, it takes a while to figure out that you’re screwed. Other times it’s immediately and glaringly obvious. This was one of those latter times.

I’ll start this off by noting that my family and I were incredibly lucky. We live outside of Covington, LA, and we’re a good nine miles or so north of Lake Ponchartrain. Katrina left a monumental mess in our yard and some serious damage to our house, but there was no flooding and everything is repairable. I decided to relate this little adventure in hopes of cheering some of you up, and because quite frankly my capacity for personal embarrassment has eroded substantially in recent years anyway.

Initially, my family and I evacuated ahead of the storm to Talladega, Alabama. If you’re a stock car racing fan you’ll be familiar with the place, otherwise it’s enough to know that Talladega is about an hour east of Birmingham, a good seven hour drive to Covington. As we all know by now, the storm hit Monday. By the following Thursday Glenn (my wife) and I couldn’t stand wondering what had become of our house any more, so we decided that we’d head back home, check things out, and head over to my mother’s place in Alexandria around 200 miles to the west. We didn’t plan on staying the night, since summer here without AC is hellish, to say the least.

It had become obvious from both news reports and personal observation that we’d need to take extra gas along the way, so we topped up the van and packed a couple of 5-gallon gas cans full of unleaded in the rear. We managed to keep the van tank full all the way to the Mississippi line, and which point we had enough gas, including the 10 gallons we’d brought, to get to Covington and then on to Alexandria.

Herein lies the first great irony of this story – we had plenty of gas.

So we get back to our house. There were tornadoes in our neighborhood. Around 90% of our trees (and there were a lot of trees to begin with) were gone along the path of the tornadoes. One neighbor had a house bisected by a felled tree. Another had a house trisected. We had (have) a tremendous mess, but the only part of our house that suffered serious damage was the front porch. We did what cleanup we could, packed a few things, and got ready to head to Alexandria.

But I was worried. What if we hit traffic, or had to be rerouted? Would we be in danger of running out of gas? Would we find ourselves in one of those 4 hour, mile-long gas lines we’d seen earlier snaking along the freeway service roads, pushing our van along in 95 degree heat only to find that the station had run out of gas right when we made it to within sight of the pumps? No, by god, we would not! For I had a brilliant stroke of unparalleled genius.

We had left our second car, a 95 Ford Explorer, behind when we evacuated to Alabama. It had a full tank of gas – 18 gallons of pure gold, as far as I was concerned. Why not just siphon 5 gallons from the tank into one of our cans so we’d have a little extra, “just in case”? Sure, I’m lousy with cars. I don’t even change my own oil. Still, something told me not to be bound by own limitations. This was a crisis, and I would surely rise to the occasion. Clearly, siphoning gas from the Ford was a GREAT idea.

As it turned out, though, siphoning gas from the Ford was NOT a great idea. It was, in fact, a mistake. Did I say mistake? Perhaps that is the wrong word. It might be better characterized as, say, a major lapse in judgment, or even more accurately, a blunder of the greatest severity. My decision to secure gas from the Ford was “not a very good idea” in the same sense that Hitler’s decision to invade Russia during the dead of winter was “not a very good idea”.

It started off badly. Before I began, I told a neighbor of my plans. He looked dubious – he knows me, after all – but he patiently explained the correct way of using a piece of tubing to start a siphon. Admittedly, I zoned out on the most important part of what he was telling me – how to actually start the siphon – but I did manage to catch “…and whatever you do, don’t try to start the siphon with your mouth.” Naturally, then, after I’d managed to scare up a suitable length of tubing a short time later, I immediately proceeded to start the siphon with my mouth. The problem with this, of course, is not that you run the danger of getting gasoline in your mouth, as I had supposed. The problem is that you inhale gasoline vapors — which, I might add, actually taste like cancer.

Having just knocked 10 years off of my natural lifespan, I resolved to follow the instructions of my neighbor, at least as best I remembered them. No luck there, though. That stupid little trap door at the entrance to the fuel line kept impeding the proper motion of the tubing critical to starting the siphon in a manner that would not cause the siphoner a drawn out and painful death. You know the part I’m talking about – it’s just a small flap that opens when you insert the gas pump nozzle into the tank during a fill-up, and closes when the nozzle is removed, thereby keeping the cancer fumes safely contained within the confines of the tank. It’s made of very thin metal. Perhaps, I thought, I could bend it back with just a little mild pressure. Perhaps, I thought, I’d just gently probe the mechanism with my finger to “get the lay of the land”, so to speak.

Catch

I guess some of you see where this is going – but bear with me.

So I begin gently probing. Weirdly, when I stick my finger in – not very far, mind you — I don’t feel the trap door at all. So I rotate my hand palm-up and push in a tad further. As God is my witness, I’m only using the gentlest of pressure, as if I’m conducting, say, a gynecological exam. Still, I didn’t feel anything, so I gave up and started to remove my hand.

Ouch. It’s almost as if something bit me. Immediately, I eliminate the possibility of some kind of snapping turtle lodged in the gas tank. How would it have gotten in there? How would it have survived? Still… I try again, this time pulling harder. OUCH!

After briefly reconsidering the turtle theory, it hits me – there would be a hinge at the top of the flap, and a cut-out area. My finger tip must have penetrated the cut out area and missed the flap altogether – which is why I didn’t feel the material of the door. I had hardly had time to congratulate myself on this deduction, when I felt the swelling set in, and the metal of the hinge bite into my fingertip.

Then I knew – I was screwed. This was not going to be some minor inconvenience. No amount of pulling was going to remove my finger from that gas tank, since due to the swelling, the hinge would by now have penetrated well into the digit. Worse, I couldn’t simply get someone with a Dremel tool or hack saw to cut me free, since we were dealing with a gasoline line – one spark from a saw and both I and my rescuer would be barbecue.

Herein lies the second great irony of this story: my greatest clarity of thought came AFTER I was trapped. Had I managed to be even a fraction less idiotic five minutes earlier, I’d be on my air-conditioned way to Alexandria. But no — now that I’m a genius, I’m fused to my car in an arrangement that increasingly looks permanent. In fact, I realize, I have actually managed to become one with a 1995 Ford Explorer.

Americans, it is said, are in love with their SUV s. Somewhere, it now occurs to me, there is probably someone who would actually get a charge out of being in my predicament.

Herein lies the third great irony of this story: I am not that someone.

Now I can feel the panic rising. Neither I nor my wife are going to be able to free me. Neighbors will have to be called. Since there’s no power, and thus no AC, television or computers, I will now become the sole source of entertainment in the area. Everyone will come. There will be popcorn, hot dog vendors and probably a barker. Now I understand why the fox will chew off its own leg to escape a trap. It does not do so to save its life. It does so to avoid being ridiculed by other forest creatures. Then, I have another thought: this is no mere freak accident, it’s a metaphor — American male bound with no hope of release to his gas-guzzling SUV by the fuel line. Get it?

I have lots of insights like this while attached to my car, by the way. It’s as if the car is actually making me smarter.

So I call my wife – who takes the news of my entrapment remarkably well – and she, in turn, calls the neighbors for help. They all come, including some I’ve never met. Lubricants are brought out – Crisco, WD-40, and maybe other stuff I don’t even want to think about. Of course the neighbors do not make fun of me, and are very kind, but it’s pretty clear that I am going to be the night’s entertainment. Oh well. I know the lubricants will not work, but I don’t say anything since I am clearly not in any position to make wise pronouncements on any topic whatsoever. One of my neighbors, a nurse, assures me that if worst comes to worst, they can always sever the finger and reattach it with microsurgery. I titter nervously. Then I realize she is completely serious.

After around half an hour, it is resolved that the fire department must be called, and on the only working cell phone for miles around, they are. Their response is remarkably prompt – it had to be less than five minutes before both (yes, there were two) trucks rumbled in. I’m guessing the novelty of the situation (“Hey, I just heard over the radio there’s a guy stuck to his car – we gotta check this out!”) may have been a contributing factor. In any case, I was pretty relieved when they showed up. These guys were professionals. They’d probably seen this a million times, and they’d know exactly what to do.

Well, the head guy assures me right off the bat that they have never seen nor heard about anything even remotely like this, and that I am pretty much screwed. They will have to amputate at the elbow. He is kidding, of course, (about the amputation part, anyway) and I laugh along, having managed to regain a sense of humor about the whole thing by now. “What do you do for a living?”, one asks. “He’s an engineer”, my wife offers brightly. There is much hilarity among the gathered crowd.

After the firefighters do a brief inspection, it becomes clear that my extrication is going to be complicated at best. The fuel line assembly is steel, and of a single piece with the gas tank, and is also bolted to the body of the car both on the outside of the car, and (via a flange) on the inside of the chassis. Damn you, Ford Motor Company – have you never heard of Velcro? The line will have to be severed – tricky, because of the potential for sparking – the outside bolts will need to be removed, and then the inside flange cut away so I can pull my hand, along with the severed portion of the fuel assembly, out of the car.

They begin by removing the bolts on the outside of the tank assembly. Somebody rolls out a collection of socket wrenches in a case that looks to be about the size of a football field. Naturally, none of the wrenches fit. Apparently, Ford uses neither US nor metric measurements for these particular bolts. Perhaps cubits, I don’t know. On a hunch, I ask Glenn to run up to my office and grab my barely-adequate set of socket wrenches. Maybe I have a 0.25 cubit one.

Herein lies the fourth great irony of this story: I, of all people, actually had the correctly sized wrench.

Release

They get the outside assembly off. Next, it’s on to cutting the fuel line. A large fire extinguisher is brought out. The crowd draws back. Several varieties of bolt cutters are tried – no luck. Then a couple of firemen bring out a large pneumatic device. I’m pretty sure this is the “Jaws of Life”, only there’s some kind of cutting attachment on the end. We’re assured that the possibility of spark and subsequent explosion is probably almost minimal. The crowd draws further back. Now I’m getting a little concerned, not only for myself, but for the fireman beneath my car actually doing the cutting. After a few minutes, though, the line is cut without incident, and (technically) I’m no longer conjoined with my car. I’m feeling much better. A power drill is used to cut out the interior flange, and, at last, I can remove my hand, to which is still attached a very large piece of the fuel line assembly. This whole thing has taken by now two or three hours, but I am seriously grateful (and always will be) to the Covington Fire Dept. for the help.

Now we’re off to the hospital. I look down at my hand. Attached to my left index finger is a large, black chunk of twisted, dirty, steel pipe maybe seven inches long. I look like some kind of really badly made cyborg. I’m pretty certain that when we finally do get to the emergency room, I am going to be the weirdest case they’ve seen in months, in essentially the same category as children with with toy firetrucks stuck up their sinuses, and guys who come in with live ferrets trapped in their rectums. It’s “Appalachian Emergency Room” come to life.

The really odd thing, though, is that after having been attached to the Ford for the last three hours I now feel somehow… incomplete.

There are a couple of security guards at the entrance to the emergency room. They, along with every other emergency services worker in the parish equipped with a radio, have already heard about me. I explain how it happened that I came to have seven inches of a 95 Ford Explorer fuel tank inlet attached to my left hand. It will not be the last time that I have to do this. As the night wears on, I will wish I had the whole story printed on flyers that I could just hand out to the curious — not that I have any right to be annoyed.

I’m admitted promptly for treatment – again, novelty seems to be working in my favor, and it looks like a slow night anyway. I explain the whole thing again to the admitting nurse, especially the part about how I was afraid gas would be scarce. “Oh no”, she replies, “Baton Rouge has plenty of gas – no lines.”

I hear laughter somewhere. I’m pretty sure it’s God.

Now the first order of business is to cut down the pipe. When the pipe was cut from the fuel tank earlier, the opening was crimped shut, which makes it impossible to get at or to even see my finger. The attending nurse decides that he’ll use one of those rotating saws used for cutting plaster casts to try and section the fuel pipe. Again, I know that this will not work. The pipe is made of steel and the blade is meant for plaster. What is called for is a hacksaw. But the nurse has a degree and probably years of medical experience. I have a fuel pipe stuck to my hand. I keep my mouth shut.

The cast saw doesn’t work, so I suggest a hacksaw (timidly). The maintenance guy comes down with a hacksaw and the nurse sets to work. I would have thought they’d have the maintenance guy do the sawing, but the nurse did it. The maintenance guy sticks around, though. It’s his hacksaw, after all. Actually lot’s of people are in and out. I can hear snatches of conversation from the lobby. Stuff like “check it out” and “fuel line guy”. I am fairly certain that I am the “fuel line guy” being referred to.

As I predicted, the hacksaw works perfectly, and the pipe is sectioned, finally exposing my finger to the light of day.

Herein lies the fifth great irony of this story: only now am I mechanically inclined. With this level of aptitude, I might have actually siphoned the gas successfully four hours ago. This is also the spookiest of all the ironies, since it is obvious that my newfound knowledge of mechanical technique could only arise from a co-mingling of my own soul with the soul of the Ford Explorer during my entrapment — you know, like the ending of the first Star Trek movie where that guy and that girl merge with Sputnik or one of those other old satellites, and there’s lots of blinky lights and swelling music, and maybe a giant glowing fetus or two… never mind.

Anyway, the attending physician seems thrilled – she will probably be the World’s Foremost Authority on this type of injury once this is all done, and maybe eventually have a building named after her. She wants to take pictures, of course. Fine with me. I ask her to email me a copy, which I’ll post here if she gets around to it, which she may not because A) she’s probably very busy and B) she probably does not want her return email address exposed to the freak with the pipe stuck to his hand. So don’t hold your breath.

9/16/2005 — As it turns out, my doctor was true to her word and sent me a copy of the photo. Caution: the image is both large and a tad gory:

With the finger thus exposed, she gives me a couple of shots of a local anesthetic and begins working to free me from the pipe. She works quickly and deftly, and pretty soon the whole thing is off of my finger, for which I am extremely grateful to both the doctor and entire Parish Hospital staff. I’m given a tetanus shot and an antibiotic and told to wait for the nurse to dress the wound. It’s been around 6 hours now.

Herein lies the sixth and penultimate irony of this story: the “dressing” consisted only of a single bandaid. Don’t get me wrong – I’m grateful that the injury was so minor, but after 6 hours I’d really have preferred something more elaborate in the way of “dressing”, like maybe a big gauze and fiberglass contraption with complicated-looking metal parts protruding everywhere. But no — I get a bandaid, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t even technically qualify as an actual “dressing”.

So, at last, we left the hospital and headed west to Alexandria. Glenn (who will hereafter always be referred to as “my long suffering wife”) was too tired to drive, so about 30 miles into the trip we pulled into what at first seemed to be an empty gas station. But it wasn’t empty. No – as we got closer there was a state trooper filling up his car, a couple of guys in a truck with Mississippi plates filling up 55-gallon drums with gas, and plenty of open and clearly operational pumps.

Herein lies the seventh and final irony of this story:

There was plenty of gas.