Driver Error

Friday. All I have to do is drop this trailer and get my new one and in 2 hours I'll be at the terminal for the weekend. Then home!!!! And I will be getting home way before dark on a Friday. Awesome!!! I can hardly stand it.

I arrive at our customer to drop the loaded trailer and get my new one for Monday delivery. I get the trailer hooked up and peek at the 5th wheel to make sure the bar is locked. When done and getting out from under the trailer, I hit the top of my head on a piece of the trailer that had a sharp edge and it brought blood. Not much but I knew it wasn't good. All because I was doing my job to be safe and now this. But it was all my fault as I went under the trailer between the tractor tires and the landing gear and the set up on this trailer did not have the same amount of room. If I had been smart, I would have checked from the right side of the landing gear.

I'm still bleeding and my trailer is near the guard shack. So I go to see the guard. It is determined that the employees trained as emergency responders are needed. Naturally, I don't think so and start to give my opinion on this, but it is too late. The phone call has been made to assist an injured driver bleeding from the top of the head.

I sit down and wait in a chair and soon there are about 6 people in the shack to assist me. Sure enough I actually hit my head hard enough there was a small but deep scrape on my scalp. So as 1 or 2 are checking this out with gauze and bandages another responder talks to me as they have to have the proper papers filled out on this call.

They need my name too. I'll spell it for you as it is easier that way. So I start out with S-T-U-P-I-D as the responder is still filling out the form for date/time and etc. They all laugh and tell me my real name is needed. So I give it to them. Now they want to know where I am heading.

"Home", I tell them, "2 hours from here".

My employer is called and we all talk and I insist I am fine and that I could have been home by now!

I am given the OK to leave by all and to take it easy for the weekend and use the icepack thing for the throbbing that may/will start.

I make it to the terminal and grab my things and put them in my pickup and head home. When home there was some throbbing and tenderness but all was fine.

I thought about the injury and how and why it happened. I could have been slower in leaving from under the trailer and doing it from a safer point. I just plain ole misjudged the point where you can get up from your bent position. Did this happen because it was Friday and I was going home?????

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