Teleidoscope

Tue, Nov 07, 2006

Falling Off a Roof

Posted at 9:16 pm MST to Miscellaneous

I got a call from my sister-in-law this evening. She wondered if I knew that my Uncle Tom was badly injured about a month ago. He fell off a high roof onto the roof of a lower wing of the building, and suffered serious internal damage. There were no broken bones, but it sounds like most of his vital organs were damaged by the impact and internal bleeding. I had't previously heard of the accident, and called my Aunt Irma immediately.

Uncle Tom is elderly, and diabetic, so he doesn't recuperate well any more. Things keep going wrong that the doctors don't expect or understand, and he has spent most of his time in the hospital since the accident.

The roofs where the accident took place were part of an old historic factory building he owns in Willington, CT. He has beautifully restored the main building into office suites with lovely exposed brick and beams, and created a gorgeous multilevel apartment in what was a small annex. There is a large pond just outside the apartment, with a dam next to the factory building, which originally used water power for spinning thread. About 10 years ago, Tom built a redwood deck over the dam, so that on one side you can look down the waterfall, and on the other you look into the millpond. I'm not good at estimating sizes of things, but the deck is at least 12 feet bt 20, and Tom did most or all of the work hmself. That was when he was 72.

Uncle Tom fell from the roof of the living room part of the annex onto the roof of the kitchen: either a two story fall or a very long one-story fall due to the high ceilings of the old factory space. (Even at the age of 83 he was still doing some of the maintenance on the building, which is how he came to fall.) He got down off the roof himself and was trying to take a bath when my aunt found him and called the EMTs, who arrived just barely in time to save his life.

A couple of my Aunt's cousins have come to stay with her and try to help out, and my cousin Tom is able to come some weekends to help. Aunt Irma always disliked driving, and I don't think she drives at all any more.

Willington is in Northeastern Connecticut, not particularly far from where I am in Quincy MA, so I may go down on the weekend, if Aunt Irma needs me or won't find my presence an added burden.

permanent link || trackback || 0 comments || Add a comment