A-10's Medical Escapades

                                       A-10’s medical escapades,,,

                                                           by

                                               Etienne Etcheverry

A-10 Etcheverry is renowned as a successful cartoon artist, as well as a good hand with horses and cow type bruts, and a better’n average header and horn catcher. Earlier this year A-10 had entered a roping near Cruces, and on one of his runs, the steer cut left and took out his heading horse’s front feet,,, and yes, down to mother earth they did A-tumble. A-10 is a pretty good size guy and I’m sure when he met the arena dirt, followed by his head horse rolling over him, A-10 most likely had the air knocked out of him. Now I was not there to witness this but having lived thru a few wrecks similar to this, thus I must speculate the end result here, bearing in mind that these type wrecks have some commonality(s).

A-10 was lying face down in the dirt as his compadres rushed to his aid fearing he might be dead cause he wudn’t moving,,, but, speculatively speaking, I bet he was doing his best to get his wind back. Once they all realized he was alive, possibly indicative by A-10’s colorful language as he rolled over, with help (I think) only to realize some skeletal parts had been rearranged. His horse was shook up some, but unharmed. A-10, on the other hand was loaded into an ambulance and dashed off to a hospital. Upon arrival, at the emergency room, it was learned there were no rooms available at the inn as all the beds were occupied by covid victims. Now our hero, meantime, was lashed down on a gurney, near the ER, in the ER waiting room, for 3 or 4 hours, which did not improve his mood much. It was finally determined there was a room located in a hospital in nearby El Paso, a mere 40 plus miles away, so they proceeded to get A-10 a ride in a helicopter. Upon arrival, he was introduced to hospital staff, that determined a few bones might be broke, but before being officially accepted into the human repair facility, he had to take a covid test, which A-10 violently stated he did NOT have covid. But that was before his exposure to the Las Cruces strain of emergency room covid, and yes he tested positive for covid in El Paso. This did not prevent his admittance as they then proceeded to set broken ankle / leg bones and discovery of fractured rib bones etc associated with wrecks of this type. A-10 also suffered an entire collapse of his sense of humor. 

Once assigned a room in which to mend, our hero learns he cannot be released from the border town health facilities until he tests negative for covid, which does not happen in just a couple of days. Soooo, in due time a few days later, he tests negative, he’s released, he escapes  and returns home to his rez on the banks of Palomas Creek, several miles upriver from El Paso, where he mends, rehabilitates etc. Now, after a period of time and his sense of humor returns somewhat, his local medico wants to check A-10 out for bodily improvement(s) and herein lies the rest of the story, from the source, being, his own self:

April 8, 2022,,,,, “I was summoned to my Dr’s. office so he could give me my final checkup after my horse wreck. For some reason after he examined me, he thought I needed a chest x-ray, because he might have detected a little water in my lungs.

Soooo off to the hospital I go, appropriate paperwork in hand and wait for a lab tech to take an x-ray. Finally a tech shows up from the toilet or breakroom or somewhere, to take care of me. Off we go down the hall to the x-ray room. Without turning around, she, the tech, tells me to take my suspenders off, so I did, then she turns me around and pushes me up against this metal box, which is part of the x-ray machine, and she takes one x-ray. 

Then she turns me around, this time my shoulder to the box and then she says, as she retreats towards the secure x-ray room,,,,,,, “See that bar up above the machine,,,,grab it and extend your arms so we can take the last x-ray”. I asked her “Are you sure”,,, she says yes so I did. When I extended my arms, my pants fell, wadding up upon my ankles. She rushed up and was trying to help me gather my pants and return them to a decent height. She was dancing around saying 

“I AM SO SORRY”,,, finally, I got my pants up and buttoned, got my suspenders back on and out to the waiting room I went. As we were going down the hall I told my wife Kathy about it and she laughed for 30 minutes. All she could ask me was, “Did your t-shirt cover your butt ???”.