One of the waitresses at the Diner last night asked me to ask another waitress about a couch. So I did and she related the story to me. This would be the tiniest girl I know, who, in the past has been in a car accident and run over twice as a pedestrian. The other day she was moving into her new apartment, two of the waiters helped her move in. In the process of shoving a couch up onto the second floor porch, (the stairs and hallway were too narrow), they lifted it up and balanced in on the rail while she steadied it, so they could come up, grab it and bring it in. Unfortunately...it twas a windy day. A gust came through, the couch caught it, lifted into the air, and slammed her between it and a pole before dropping down on top of her.
I asked if when the guys came up stairs if they were laughing, she said they waited until after the lifted it off her.
She was feeling rather down about the entire affair and embarrassed so related my own "having something on top" story.
Back in the eighties, remember those, I was active with the Rescue Company. We were sent to the docks off Willow street in Mystic for a Body recovery. A Banker had fallen off the back of a boat two weeks earlier and though he had been sighted a number of times, until that night had not been recovered. He just floated around, back and forth with the tides occasionally surfacing, bouncing off boats then sinking again before he could be...caught. Well, we arrived at dockside with a report that the Police boat had the body in tow. So I grabbed one end of the Stokes, (hard-shell stretcher), and the Lieutenant the other. Having been at recoveries before I decided to let the Loo lead with the head of the stokes and I followed with the foot end. The reason for this was two fold, first off, the head has the main body weight as the torso is closer to that end, I have legs and feet. Secondly, the more, I'll use the term "matter" there is, the more there is to...smell. So, we walked across the parking lot, down the ramp to the float dock. It was night so visibility wasn't that great but after a little while we heard the boat coming up the river, The Police had him caught and tied to the side of the boat by one leg, the other leg, due to the speed of the boat and the force of the water was sticking straight up in the air with dual Rooster tails coming off it. The Cops pulled up to the dock, untied the victim, lifted him out of the water and dropped him on the dock. Zack (the lieutenant) and I picked up the victim, set him in the stokes and started up the dock to the waiting Ambulance ashore. I was leading walking backwards up the ramp with Zack facing me walking normal. What no one had noticed is that when the ramp was built it didn't quite go all the way to the top of the hill and meet the ground. It was supported on top by two pilings and left about a eight inch gap. Backing up in the dark, there was only one way to find the gap and I did. I stepped in the hole. the leg went through and with the backward momentum the knee bent where it was supposed to. I went down on my back, the stokes came down on my chest, the body slid forward so the feet and legs left the stokes and slid up across my chest and stopped with the calves on my shoulder. Not the greatest smell I have witnessed. Worse yet, while in the stokes the body had drained a bit of its acquired rather tainted water and that rushed forward like a small wave over my chest and past both sides of my neck. Lying on my back with my arms in front, and the stokes still angle upwards towards Zack there was no way to bench press a lift to get the body off me. Two engine company members came running over and released me by lifting the corpse and stokes up. I pulled the leg out of the hole, rolled to my knees and stood up. The entire time, from the fall to the recovery....Zach was laughing his ass off. (It's good to have friends).
The waitress?
She said she preferred having the couch.
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