There are no characters in this story less then age eighteen, This story is a complete fiction, any resemblance to any person living, or dead is purely coincidental, and was not the intent of the author.
***********
It was my eighteenth summer. I graduated from high school at the very top of my class of 484 students. I earned a scholarship to Stanford, but that would only pay for books and tuition. The normal living expenses, like room and board, I would have to pay out of my own pocket.
I had no parents to help pay my way. Both were killed in an accident, years before. I was raised in foster care since I had no other kin that I knew of.
I was a star athlete through high school, playing both football and track. So it seemed to me the most logical way to make money would be to use my physical strength to work on some farm helping with the harvest. That was what I was doing now: walking along a country road looking for a summer job.
The morning was very warm as I walked along and when I came upon a wooded area I was grateful for the shade. Since the road was graveled it was easier to walk down the center, where the gravel was pushed aside. On the side of the road, the going was much tougher, there the stones were two to three inches deep.
I was walking along enjoying the comparative coolness under the trees that covered this stretch of the road, rather then the hot summer sun. I must have been day dreaming or something, because all of a sudden there was the screech of brakes right behind me.
I turned my head but it was too late to react because I felt tremendous pain just below both my knees and the next thing I remember, I was laying on my back in the ditch, and the face of a woman looking like an angel, peering down at me, with a worried look on her pretty face. She knelt down beside me, and felt over my body to try and assess how much damage had been done to my body.
After feeling over my body she said, "Don't move. I'm a nurse and I have some emergency medical supplies in my trunk." She disappeared but soon returned and again knelt beside me. The first thing she did was to gently clean the blood and dirt from my face. "Just a few minor scrapes here," she said.
"My legs," I moaned, fighting to stay conscious.
She gently felt down my legs, starting from my upper thighs and slowly feeling her way down.
I gasped when she came to the area just below my knee and she stopped with the one leg and started feeling down the other. Once again I cried out, when she touched the same area on the other leg.
When she had finished with her examination she looked down at me, brushing a lock of my hair out of my eye she said, "I think you have one or possibly two broken legs. I'm going to get something to splint them with, and take you to the hospital.
She came back with four pieces of strait wood about a yard long. She put them along the damaged area of my legs, and secured them tight with four ace bandages for each leg. Now she said, "Can you sit up? I'm going to have to drag you to the back seat of my car."
With me helping as much as I could, by pushing myself along using my arms, she got me to the side of her car. It was a large, four-door, American car. With a lot of pain and difficulty, she managed to get me up into the back of the car, and I pulled myself across, keeping my legs on the seat. She elevated them with some cushions and told me to lay back down.
Then off we went to the hospital.
*****************
When we arrived at the emergency room, she left me in the car and went inside.
I think I must have passed out or gone to sleep, because the next thing I remember was looking up at a doctor and two nurses working on my legs.
They must have given me something for the pain because I was not in any discomfort at all. Except for the fact that my clothes were gone, and I was in one of those horrid hospital gowns. I was cold and started to shiver, one of the nurses wrapped me in a warm blanket.
When the doctor finished his work, he looked down at me and said, "You have two broken legs there, my boy. It is a clean break, though, so it should heal just fine. It will just take a little time, that's all." I put two walking casts on you, so at least you will be able to walk around, with the use of crouches.
"The lady that hit you is a nurse. She works at this hospital and said she would look in on you in a little while. I think I will be keeping you with us for a day or two. I may just as well put you in her ward."
"Right now she is telling the police what happened. I'm sure they will want to talk to you as soon as you are able."
"It was all my own fault. I was walking down the middle of the road instead of the side," I tried to explain.
"Well, you can talk to the police tomorrow. Right now I'm going to give you a shot that will put you to sleep for a few hours," the doctor said.
**************************
When I awoke I was laying in a hospital bed. The room was dark except for the light from the medical monitor screen. I had no idea what time it was but I could tell it was night, since no light came through my window blind. I was terribly thirsty. I lay there quietly, but looking around the room in the dim light. I found what looked like a TV control clipped to my pillow. One of the buttons said "nurse" and I pushed that.
I lay back on my pillow and waited. A few minutes passed and the door opened and in walked the same pretty woman the had hit me with her car. "Good evening," she said and came to my bedside. I looked up at her pretty smiling face and asked for a drink of water. She filled a glass with ice-water from a pitcher on my night stand and handed it to me.
I drank it down greedily and asked her for more.
She refilled the glass and gave me a second drink. "Do you remember me?" she asked sweetly, as I drank the water.
"Yes," I said. "You're the lady that taught me not to walk down the middle of the road."
When she smiled her eye seemed to sparkle. "Yes, but not quite the way you said it," she said. " I was traveling a little too fast. I asked the Doctor to assign you to my floor so I could keep a special eye on you."
