Tales from the construction site ed 1
As new Skateparks are popping up around the country there are also stories at the construction of those parks. Since I been part of almost all the skatepark constructions (not all obviously) in the country I have so many stories that I decided to start a series. So here is no.1 and this is still fresh in my mind cause it happened just a week back in Ahmedabad when a skeleton crew from 100ramps along with myself went back to finish the Skatepark there.
For some background 100ramps was building this huge Skatepark in Ahmedabad when covid hit india (Feb). We had maybe three days work left to complete but the lockdown was going to begin so it was our last chance to get home for another two months. So we left and decided to come back there whenever travel opened up again.
Fast forward 5 months and we are finally back and we can skate the park as well as most of it is completely cured. The weather was horrendous, hot, humid, sticky and just plain uncomfortable. So we decided to work at night and completely forgot to get lights. The work was easy so we decided to soldier on in limited visibility. Well obviously tying rebar in the dark is a terrible idea and as I cut a length of rebar I watched as dhroov (fellow 100ramps skeleton crew member) sprang to the ground with his hand on his face in agony. What happen was that the other side of the rebar was under tension because of its weight and when I broke it the rebar levered up from my hand and stabbed dhroov in the eye. Straight in the eye I shit you not. I thought I poked his eyeball out. With blood flowing through the hand which he had clenched to his eye I called an uber and head for the closest big hospital on the map. We get there and an army of security guards turn us away at the gate itself cause they got corona patients in the hospital. It’s now almost ten and time is running out to get to any emergency room with a doctor around. So we jump back in back in the cab and I find the next closest hospital. As we rush into the hospital on the second floor I find the reception and start registering dhroov in for his treatment. As I look around at this seemingly brand new hospital with super white walls and floors, brand new equipment I realised that our luck was maybe finally changing. We had fluked into a eye specialist hospital and there were a bunch of doctors doing their post grad eager to get involved.. dhroov was surrounded by some young ladies all of whom flashed lights, peered into his now increasingly swelling eye and used all sorts of eye drops to dilate it all the while taking umpteen number of pictures and filling pages full of observations. They did an testeye to make sure he had vision in both eyes. My relief was immeasurable when he read the chart with his injured eye and it was as good as his good eye. Their only question was “why is this other eye red if it isn’t injured?”. Well we put it down to dust at the time but I am not so sure.
They gave us a choice either put a stitch in dhroovs eye which would then take 1month to heal or take him home and medicate which will then heal in 4-5 days. We chose the latter (I mean I have never even heard of putting a stitch in someone’s eyeball) and high tailed it back to our place (also I had to sign off saying he hadn't been in a fight and the police didn't need to get involved). After some strong painkillers and a nights sleep dhroov was up and about again. In three days he was back at work and we finished the Skatepark. He was riding his bike and shredding while looking at the world with both eyes wide open (though still a bit red in both eyes). The steel had scratched his eyeball but had narrowly missed damaging his cornea. But I am changed forever now. Never again , that’s for sure.
