v33.5: Ferocious Friday

Morning folks,

-slurp-

It is a ferocious Friday out there today.  Overnight we were hit with a fairly large storm and we're expecting to get a few inches of rain and 100km/h winds today.  The drive into work was... interesting.

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I wasn't going to come into the office today.  If it hadn't been for the loss of power at our house, I would have definitely stayed in.  Unfortunately, it wasn't until I was almost to work that my wife called and told me the power had come back on.  I'm so excited to be at work today!

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So the drive in was interesting, but you have no idea how interesting it was.  First off, my regular Tim Horton's was closed this morning because it too had no power.  So I drove on to my other spot (which is still on the way to work) and pulled into the driveway.  The drive-thru was backed up all the way to the street and this place has a very long drive-thru.  I got in the lineup and waited.  I'm guessing it was at least 20 minutes in line before I finally got my order.  I pulled away from the building and made my way back onto the street and toward the highway.  Despite how wet I was and the rain coming down, I was quite thirsty, so I decided to crack open the coffee and take a drink.  I damn near burned my mouth.  I don't normally drink my coffee as soon as I get it since I only take 1 cream in it.  After a quiet curse, I put the coffee back in the coffee holder and continued on.

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I got to the highway and was already dreading the drive in.  Cars were lined up as far as I could see going in-bound.  This was going to be one of those days where I should have stayed home.  Against my better judgment I pulled onto the exit ramp and down to the highway.  Traffic wasn't at a stand-still but they were moving very slow.  The wind was rocking all our vehicles and the raid was pounding hard.  Even with my windshield wipers on full-speed I wasn't able to see through the water that quickly covered my windshield.  It went like this for at least half an hour until finally I could see what was causing the hold-up, a car in the right lane with their 4-way flashers on.  Great.

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I decided to pull into the left lane early so I put on my signal and some nice person allowed me to merge in.  I gave a polite wave through my rear window knowing full well the person behind me would never see it, but it made me feel better for doing it.  Traffic was slower in the left lane as everyone made way to allow for those in the right to merge over.  We slowly crept up on the stalled vehicle and that is when I noticed there was someone outside waving their hands at the cars passing by; it was almost as if this person wanted someone to stop, which nobody was.

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I passed by the car and decided I would pull over in front of him to see what was up.  Yes I was going to be late for work, nothing was going to help that now and yes I was going to get wet but hey, if we don't look out for each other what's the point right?  I flipped up the collar on my jacket, cursing that I didn't bring my hat with me, and opened the door and got out.  The person ran toward me waving his hands in the air.  He was a young male, probably in his mid 20s.  I later found out his name was Dave.  He ran up to me and grabbed my jacket and started making his way back to the stalled car.  I shook free and was getting ready to retreat to my car when I could hear yelling coming from the car.  Dave was frantic, couldn't get a single coherent word out.  I decided (against everything I was ever taught) to head over and check out what was happening.

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I peeked into the car and there was this woman in the backseat and she was quite obviously pregnant and breathing very heavily and in a lot of pain.  It didn't take long for me to realize this woman was in labor  and, by the looks of things, was about to have a baby in the back seat of her car.  Now I'm not some miracle worker here, I have no idea how to deliver a baby but I've seen it done a few times now and figured if something didn't happen now, this poor woman and her baby would die.  I turned to Dave, grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a firm slap across the face.  At first I thought the guy was going to hit me back but he blinked several times and seemed to snap out of whatever he was on.  I asked him if he had called 911.  He nodded yes and said they were on their way.  I asked him if he had any blankets or anything in his car we could use; he ran to the back of his car and began tugging on the trunk lid.  This guy was frantic and was doing me no good to have him around.  I reached in the driver-side door and found the trunk release button, the trunk popped open and Dave nearly fell over backwards.  He regained his balance and pulled out a big blanket from the trunk of his car.

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By this time a couple more people had stopped and were asking if we needed help, all I could hear was this woman screaming, the rain pounding and the wind blowing harder than I've ever seen it.  I started to coach the woman on her breathing, she was obviously scared and had no idea what she was doing.  I asked her what her name was, it was Kim.  I asked her if this was her first child and she nodded yes between breaths.  I asked her if she was feeling the baby coming and she nodded yes and then screamed.  I turned to Dave who had calmed down considerably and told him the baby was coming and we were going to need to deliver inside the car.  We grabbed the blanket, layed it across the seat under her and began to prepare as much as we could.

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At this point I frightened, I have no idea what I'm doing.  I remember the recent birth of our daughter just over a year ago and I recall some of the steps that were performed prior to the birth but we didn't have time, this baby was coming and there was nothing we could do to slow it down.  I told Kim we were going to need to deliver this baby in the car and told her she needed to push between the contractions.  She nodded.  Dave got into the car beside her and held her hand while I climbed in the other side to hopefully deliver this baby.  Now there were quite a few people standing around watching, I turned my head to see several dozen people behind me.  I yelled out if anyone here was a doctor or nurse and there were no responses.  Kim started to yell again, I turned back and could see the head.  I remembered this part.  I remembered it all too well.

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I'm going to omit the details of the birth.  While childbirth is a beautiful thing, there are aspects of it that are a bit too disgusting to write about.  I will say the baby is fine, it's a girl, and Kim and Dave are currently at the hospital with their new daughter, happy and healthy.  After meeting with the paramedics and police, I cleaned up and made my way into the office, obviously late.  I had no idea how I was going to explain myself to my boss or my co-workers.  I was a wreck as well, soaked to the bone, hair sticking in every direction and was in no condition to work.

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I sat down at my desk and realized I had daydreamed the whole thing.  In fact, the drive to work was uneventful as usual and in order to make a boring drive more exciting I made up a story to keep it interesting.  In fact, the only interesting thing that happened my entire morning on my way into the office was my car went sideways on the highway when I hit a massive puddle.  I recovered control fine and continued on my way.  I really need to get more sleep at night.

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Cheers,

Al