A Memorable Class Reunion?
Painfully Interesting
by Pete Norgeot
In 1998 our graduating class of 1958 was holding its 40th class reunion. The "mixer" (pre-event get together) was held the eve of the reunion at the home of one of our classmates and her husband.(who graduated a year ahead of us) They had a very nice home tucked away in a heavily wooded area close to a couple ponds. A great place for a cookout and get together.
Alice & I arrived around the scheduled time and found that many of our classmates were already there getting an early start.
Susan & Charlie had a significant-sized deck attached at the rear of the house and was accessed by way of a six foot slider off the living room. Susan greeted us at the front door and led us inside. We greeted the classmates who were in the living room renewing acquaintances, then I headed out onto the deck where close to a dozen other folks were gathered.
I stepped out onto the deck and immediately experienced the sensation of the house going up. In fact, It wasn't. Apparently, my fatitude was the straw that broke the camel's back. The deck collapsed. I was going down along with everyone else. It seemed like slo-motion but it wasn't.
The deck was attached to the house by a "nailer" on the inboard side and was supported by vertical posts (4x4s) on the outboard side. The deck itself was about 12 feet above the ground. (a full story high)
What happened was that the "nailer", which was not through-bolted but was simply nailed to the house through the shingles, pulled away from the house dropping the inboard side straight down while the vertical posts held their ground keeping the outboard side in place creating a huge slide. Consequently, everyone (and everything) on the deck slid down the deck toward the house.
I was on the inboard side so my drop was straight down. Strangely enough, I did not experience a sensation of falling. Instead, I simply saw the house going up. Because my reflexes were pretty good for an old guy, I instinctively reached out and grabbed the outside light fixture as I went by. I hung on and it dislocated my shoulder. When I hit the ground I landed squarely on that shoulder and did some damage to it.
Simultaneously, other classmates landed on top of me and some suffered varying levels of injuries. Then to make matters more interesting, the charcoal grill landed on me spilling its contents of barbeque sauce all over me.
Because God watches over us fools, they hadn't fired up the grill yet so no one got burned. That was of little consolation to Alice when she came charging down to check on me. She saw the barbeque sauce, assumed it was blood (mine) and freaked out.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, several calls went out requesting ambulances. The numbers requested ranged from one to "as many as you can send". Ultimately twelve (12) ambulances showed up including one each from Harwich and Yarmouth, the two fire departments I had spent nearly twenty (20) years on. I was told later that the crews from each of these towns were trying their best to transport me. They lost though and I was transported by Brewster Fire Department.
Needless to say, we all got treated and most of us got released that night. There were a couple folks more seriously injured who were admitted. My injuries were diagnosed as a dislocated shoulder, a torn rotator cuff, and a compressed spine fracture in the middle of my back. Exciting!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our hosts and a few classmates, who arrived late or weren't on the deck when it fell, were left to wonder about the number and extent of the injuries and were anxiously waiting for reports.
While at the emergency room I had thought about what they must be feeling and told Alice that when I got released, we were going to go back to the house to tell them what they needed to know. She agreed. So, with wing in a sling and some pain-killers onboard we went back.
We were the only ones who did. There were a bunch of folks who were much less injured than me but they chose to go home and lick their wounds. We provided a pretty complete accounting of who was injured and how serious their injuries appeared to be, then we went home.
The actual Class Reunion, dramatically over-shadowed by the previous evening's events, went off quite well considering. Unfortunately, many injured classmates did not attend. Also, I had the misfortune to have previously volunteered to be Master of Ceremonies so I painfully stuck to my commitment. (a couple drinks helped)
The evening pretty much consisted of what happened, why it happened, and the huge turn-out of rescue personnel. One example was that the Harwich ambulance was part of the pre-planned mass casualty assignment to Orleans but Yarmouth was not. Everyone was amused to hear that the troops from Yarmouth, upon hearing that I was involved, grabbed a backup ambulance and came to Orleans. Nice!
Our class has had some interesting reunions resulting in "cat-fights", being thrown out of Wequasset Inn (and being invited NOT to come back), and other innocuous thing like that, and to say that our 40th Class Reunion was memorable would be a grand understatement. We are not all dead yet (working on it though) so stay tuned.
Almost forgot. Our 60th class reunion was scheduled to be held at our house. (we had our 59th there and people had a good time) It was scheduled for June 16th, 2018. Christie Turner (our "Little Mother") had everyone notified well in advance. She and Jeanne (Ozon) Dunning came to the house to coordinate with Alice about details. Everything was a "go". Ooooops!
On June 4th, less than 2 weeks from the reunion, I guess I thought it would be a good idea to have a "dissecting" (ruptured) aorta. So I did.
Guess what? I missed the reunion. All the plans, readiness, etc. were down the toilet. Once again our "Little Mother" stepped up. They had the reunion at her home. Thank God for Christie!!!
I told you we had interesting reunions.
