Ok, so this isn't a land speeder but it's still worth a hard wince... I was
on the flightline in Danang in the middle of a howling monsoon. The bad guys
had been sniping on and off and the day before one of our guys had been killed
while doing a preflight. I had a screamin' case of amoebic dysentery, a
raging fever and day 500-something was about to get even worse than the day
before.... I suspected a corroded electrical connector way up inside the
hole, about as far as I could reach standing on tiptoe, and after twisting
loose about 3 or 4 turns, I felt something burning like hell on my arm. I
ignored it because I had spent so much time getting my hand up there and
didn't want to start over. After just a minute or two, I began feeling really
bad. I was soaked to the skin, and even though it was probably 90 degrees, I
got colder and colder and remember thinking something like "Oh $h1%, I've
been shot " and blacked out. Next thing I know, I'm on my back in a Navy
hospital with my arm covered in a huge bandage, and a couple of IV's running
full throttle. And I was tied to the bed with a corpsman standing watch over
me wanting to know why I wanted to "off" myself. Found out the next
morning that someone had repaired a wire in that same hole, and as was the
custom back then, used a pirated surgical scalpel to strip a wire or cut the
waxed string we used as spot tie. It nicked the guy who was sent out to finish
the job otherwise I might have been in deep doo doo... He showed me the
big piece of curved blade that had broken off and had wedged tight in the
harness right where my wrist was resting - it sliced me long and deep, and
not just once, but twice. He also told me that the wire harness was
covered in blood. The only stitches I got were on the inside and fortunately,
it healed nicely - I've only got a couple of very fine lines left, about 6
inches long on my left wrist.
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