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Now most of you will never be this stupid but it might help someone in the future. I was on a ladder with my pond about 2 feet back from the fence itself. This is an elevated pond so the border is about 2 feet off the ground making very little room between the fence and the pond border so the ladder was almost straight up. I was installing some threaded rings for a sail about 9 feet up. I was also battling a branch from a dogwood that the wife is very fond of so not to hurt the branch I ducked underneath it so it was pushing on me as I climbed the ladder. When I was done installing the rings my impatience got the better of me with the branch pushing on my back I tried to climb down the ladder too fast to step back on the pond border. The result was a miscalculation of how high up I was and the result was my falling backward into the pond on top of the copper fountain. It impaled me under the armpit going 4 inches in, tearing a 1 inch gap before sliding out. I managed to crawl out.
That was the first stupid mistake. Here's the second one. I did not go to the hospital that day. It was the wife's birthday and I didn't want her memory to be of going to the ER. Now for the third. The next day I went to a clinic instead of a hospital. They did not clean out the wound and under their care for the next 9 days a staff infection grew. During that time I had no energy and no appetite whatsoever but no fever which really confused everyone. When it abscessed they drained it out forcefully. I felt great afterward and even got hungry but the bacteria was obviously not dead so I went to the hospital. Finally a smart move. They gave me IV antibiotics for 2 days and after a culture was taken and identified the bacteria and put me on heavy antibiotics. I've spent the last 12 days recovering. Remember, I lost 10 days due to sheer stupidity. The doctor had said if that pipe was anything other than copper I would most likely be dead because it would have punctured my lung. In the last 10 days its healed about 2.6 inches with a little more than an inch to go with daily dressing changes thanks to the wife.
BTW, the bacteria was NOT pond related. It was a skin staff infection which surprised me a bit.
I tell you this story not to gain sympathy and certainly not to relive it for the umpteenth time but merely a reminder to respect your pond when you are working around it. Avoid razor sharp items in your pond (like copper pipes) in your fountain. Stick some damn rubber on top of it or plastic, anything to avoid a disaster.
This is the pond itself. I fell into the top pond back first. You can see the fountain which is now flat at the bottom of the pond. Thank God for soft metal.
That was the first stupid mistake. Here's the second one. I did not go to the hospital that day. It was the wife's birthday and I didn't want her memory to be of going to the ER. Now for the third. The next day I went to a clinic instead of a hospital. They did not clean out the wound and under their care for the next 9 days a staff infection grew. During that time I had no energy and no appetite whatsoever but no fever which really confused everyone. When it abscessed they drained it out forcefully. I felt great afterward and even got hungry but the bacteria was obviously not dead so I went to the hospital. Finally a smart move. They gave me IV antibiotics for 2 days and after a culture was taken and identified the bacteria and put me on heavy antibiotics. I've spent the last 12 days recovering. Remember, I lost 10 days due to sheer stupidity. The doctor had said if that pipe was anything other than copper I would most likely be dead because it would have punctured my lung. In the last 10 days its healed about 2.6 inches with a little more than an inch to go with daily dressing changes thanks to the wife.
BTW, the bacteria was NOT pond related. It was a skin staff infection which surprised me a bit.
I tell you this story not to gain sympathy and certainly not to relive it for the umpteenth time but merely a reminder to respect your pond when you are working around it. Avoid razor sharp items in your pond (like copper pipes) in your fountain. Stick some damn rubber on top of it or plastic, anything to avoid a disaster.
This is the pond itself. I fell into the top pond back first. You can see the fountain which is now flat at the bottom of the pond. Thank God for soft metal.
