Rebecca SmithFollow

Date Collected

Fall 11-22-2018

Place item was collected

Brigham City, Utah

Informant

Rachel Post

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Rachel Post is my older sister. She was born in July of 1974 - that makes her 44 at the time of this posting. She graduated from Utah State University with a degree in Elementary Education in 1998 and became a 3rd grade teacher at Grantsville Elementary in Grantsville, Utah. She has been a stay at home mom to her 5 kids, but now that her youngest is in school full time she has begun working as a reading aid at a local elementary school.

Context

My sister broke her pelvis when I was a freshman at USU in 1995. The story is quite famous in our family because for years after the pelvis incident if Rachel felt she was being picked on or didn’t want to do something physical she’d say “oh, my pelvis hurts!” It’s still something we tease her about all these years later. My parents called me the morning after the accident and I was super worried. I rushed out of my dorm room to hop in my car and race to the hospital, but my car door was frozen shut. I rushed around to the passenger side thinking I’d climb through the car, but my passenger door was also frozen shut. I managed to get my trunk open and since it was a hatch back I was able to crawl through the whole car. Fortunately my car started and by the time I made it to the hospital, the ice around my door had thawed enough that I was could get out. I had asked my sister a few weeks before we actually sat down to record her telling of the story so she had some time to remember everything. We went into our parents room and both laid on the bed while she talked. We’ve always been best friends, but it’s been years since we have been able to spend time talking (I’ve lived out of state for the last 18 years as my husband is in the Air Force) and laying on the bed together talking brought back the feelings and comfort of all the times we laid together talking in college. Rachel knew I was going to talk to her husband, Zeke, about the story after I talked to her about “her side” of the story. Interestingly, neither Rachel or Zeke asked me what the other person had said after I was done with both interviews. Rachel met Zeke (the guy in the story who landed on her and broke her pelvis) on a blind date. Rachel’s best friend, Kara, was dating Zeke’s brother, Zach. Kara and Zach broke up not too long after the accident happened.

Text

RS: This is with Rachel on whatever Thanksgiving day is.

RP: [enthusiastically] So, as the story goes, Zeke and I were dating, and, I don’t I, I think it was in January.

RS: I think so too.

RP: Yeah because I think we had gone back up to school after Christmas break.

RS: Cause I remember-

RP: It was January [RS: yeah] now that I think about it, yeah and uhh, we were looking for something to do you know you want to go on a date but you’re college kids and you don’t have a lot of money and umm everyone talked about how great tubing on Old Main hill is . And so we were like ‘ok let’s do that’ so we- I don’t remember where Zeke got the tube, umm maybe he already had it, but, we got in our big, warm clothes coats boots and Zeke had a hat that was like a stocking hat but it had a really long [extends both words] tail [motions with hands to show tail of hat going down the side of her body]. And I’ll, I’ll tell you more about that in just a minute, why I remember that. Anyways so, there was a lot [extends word] of people up there umm, tubing, so you just kind of wait your turn and we’re standing up and I think we’d both gone down separately a couple times, and kind of to the middle of the bottom of the hill there was some hay- hay bales that people would go over and, and their tubes would go over and, and their tubes would jump and they’d get up in the air and you know and then land. People were having a lot of fun, lots of excited noise and it was, it was fun umm but a little side note, when you’re dating, you kind of agree to do whatever. And being cold is not something I enjoy. Being in the snow is not something I enjoy. Being- tubing and sledding is something I’ve never [stresses word] really like [laughs] but [extends word] I was dating Zeke and you’re like ‘yeah, ok that’s a great idea’ [said with mocking voice] and you’re happy to go along and do whatever. Anyways so we’d seen other people- the, the tube was huge two people could fit on it and we’d seen other people go down double so we thought ‘yeah lets go down double at the same time.’ Well as- as we get on the tube as we’re going down double, with two of us on the tube, we start to turn backwards, and were heading right, for, the hay bale. So Zeke yells ‘bail’ [voice mimics shouting] and umm he was able to get out- no. Actually I don’t think he was we both hit, we both hit the, the umm hay bale we both went flying. I hit the ground first and then he landed right on top of me, and then kept rolling. Well because I hit the ground first and then his body weight hit me, I just stopped. I didn’t roll I didn’t go anywhere. And I was faced down and I just sat there for a minute he gets up and he comes over and says ‘are you ok?’ And I say ‘oh just give me a minute’ and you know the feeling like when you like maybe trip and you kind of stun your knee or something and you’re like ok I just, I just need a minute I just need to stop hurting and then I can get up and go. That’s kind of what I felt like at first. I said ‘just give me and minute I just need a minute and then I can get up.’ Well it soon became apparent that I wasn’t ging to get up. And umm, I had a lot of pain in my back and it actually really scared me because I knew that I couldn’t move and all the pain was in my back. The first thing I thought was that I was paralyzed. It really [emphasis on word] scared me. And umm, anyways Zeke’s down there by me and some other people start gathering around when they see I wasn’t moving and he says ‘you’ve got to got to get up there’s other people who want to come. You’ve got to get up you’ve got to move’ and I said ‘I can’t’ and umm I think he started to get a little panicky too. Umm, but I don’t know who called the ambulance but an ambulance did come and they, they brought, they brought the stretcher and got me up off the hill. And I remember in the ambulance ride, umm they they were asking me all sorts of weird questions like ‘tell me your name what’s, what’s your birthday uhh who’s the president’ umm…

RS: They were probably trying to make sure you weren’t in shock [RP: exactly] or gotten a concussion.

RP: Exactly, that’s exactly what they were doing which I found out later because I think I remember, even remember asking them ‘why why are you asking me all this’ anyway they took me to the hospital and umm into the emergency room and did x-rays and it’s probably 10:30 at night at this point in time and, and so Zeke was not allowed to ride in the ambulance so he came separate and the reason why so the reason why I remember the hat is because he’s still wearing this hat in the emergency room. And he wouldn’t take it off [frustration in voice] and I even said to him ‘take off that dumb hat’ and he’s like ‘no’ cause he has curly hair and it gets and when it’s long it gets really bushy. And so he didn’t want to take off his hat because he had this long bushy hair. So here he is in the emergency room wearing this stupid long hat and of all the things that were bugging me that hat was bugging me and I don’t know why [laughs]. But [RS: super funny] anyway they called mom and I’m sure it freaked her out but I remember them saying ‘she’s ok’ uhh ‘she’s here in the emergency room she broke her pelvis.’ And umm I really wasn’t too much aware of what mu pelvis was but it’s your round butt bone essentially and when you break your pelvis because it’s round you’ll break it in two places. And so I broke the ischium and the pubis. And, umm uhh, basically that’s the bone like when you ride a bike and you, your butt bone that’s the bone that you can feel that’s the one that I broke and anyways they did make me stay in the hospital overnight because it was late and I don’t remember what point in time Zeke went home but the next morning mom came up and I had to work with the physical therapist to teach me how to walk on crutches and then they, they released me they made me ride in a wheelchair out to the car but I had to come home in fact I had to drop all but I think I was able to keep one of my classes.

RS: Oh I didn’t realize you had to drop them all.

RP: Um-hmm I cause I couldn’t get back up to campus and get around.

RS: So what class did you keep do you remember?

RP: Shoot I don’t even remember. It was probably one of my education classes.

RS: Well how would you get up to campus then?

RP: I think it was one that we had made arrangements for somehow. I really can’t remember that [RS: uh-huh] but umm yeah. So for a couple weeks it was a six week healing on the crutches, and then umm then I was able to get up to campus, that must have been how it worked. And I was able to like do, I really don’t remember it was ’96 when it happened so more than twenty years ago. It was January because [said excitedly] so umm Zeke would come down every day and spend time with me every day and and he got to know we got to know each other better and he got to know the family better uhh I do remember that one time we actually went out on a date and when we got back home I was just really [emphasizes word] hurting it was hard I was hurting really bad and I remember dad saying to Zeke ‘I think it’s just time you go home now’ cause he wanted to hang out and dad’s just like ‘nope just go home she needs her rest’ and umm anyways it was- so I was able to go back up to campus and I was still on my crutches and it was February 12 I do remember that because we went out to dinner then we went for a walk back to Old Main hill me on my crutches of course and he proposed to me [pause] on Old Main hill with me on my crutches on February 12. He said ‘I didn’t want to do it on valentine’s day that’s too cliché’ [laughs].

RS: That’s funny. I didn’t realize that was when.

RP: Yep so that was kind of the story of him breaking my pelvis and a little bit of the recovery and-

RS: Feeling so guilty he asked you to marry him?

RP: His mom said ‘you break it you buy it’ [laughs].

Texture

Rachel was very relaxed while telling the story. She laughed a lot and was very animated with her voice and hand gestures. She’s told this story many times but she really thought about the details and the order in which everything happened.

Course

English 2210

Instructor

Lynne McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2018

Theme

G7: Courtship

EAD Number

3.9.1.27

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