Wednesday the 15th. Last Thursday Ben asked if we could take the car to "rotty" instead of the van. I obliged and after class I loaded Ben first into the backseat, then Jackson. We only use the car for driving around town, so Jackson sits in a booster seat rather than the full five point harness child seat like he does in the van. It was cold and I was moving fast to get everyone buckled. As soon as I had Jackson in, I ducked out of the back seat (it's a two door car), slammed the door shut and started around the back of the car. I heard crying and wondered what Jackson had done to make Ben mad. Once I reached the driver's side I looked in the window and saw that Ben wasn't crying at all, but Jackson was absolutely screaming. The way I remember this next part is in complete slow motion.
Jackson was leaning forward in his seat screaming with his right arm extended forward. I'm scanning everything trying to see what could be wrong when my eyes follow his arm all the way up to his hand. That's when I saw that the door had closed on all four of his fingers. His hand was trapped inside the closed door. My stomach completely left my body. I sprinted around the car, grabbed the door and tried to open it. It was locked. I dug through my pockets trying to find the keys, it felt like forever before I could get them out and into the door. I was trying to move so fast that my hands couldn't keep up with my mind and my fingers were fumbling like crazy. I locked the door three times in a row instead of unlocking it. It seemed that time had completely stopped and I had lost control of my own fingers. When I opened the door, Jackson fell back in his seat, still screaming. I told him to hold tight because we were going straight to the emergency room. I didn't want to waste any time looking at his fingers since that wouldn't help anyway, I just wanted to get him to a doctor. Through his sobs Jackson was doing his best to say that he didn't want to go to the hospital, he just wanted to go home. At our first stoplight I asked Jackson to let me see his hand. He extended his left arm up to me. I said "wasn't it your other hand? How did you get this one stuck in the door?" He started to re-enact it, realized he was wrong, then extended his right hand saying "Oh yeah, it was this one." That's when I discovered what I'm glad you are happy to learn as well, his hand was %100 fine. As it turns out, there was just enough room between the interior's molding and the door's molding to trap Jackson's fingers when the door closed, but it wasn't even tight enough to pinch them, cut them, or scratch them, much less break them. His fingers simply got stuck, it hurt and it scared him. I can't describe how relieved I was. One order of popcorn chicken from Sonic, a smoothie and a kiss from mommy was all it took to make him feel completely better.
Happy Birthday to our niece who turned twelve on Monday!
"The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face." —"Daily Show" correspondent Rob Corddry.