*Trigger warning: violence.
This is a semi-fictionalized account of real events that occurred in April 1990. Names have been changed or omitted, and conversations have been altered with creative license.
In our lives, we make mistakes. Some good. Some bad. Some that are laughable. Some that are forgettable. And some that are so profoundly stupid and potentially devastating to our lives that we continue to live inside the shadow of that mistake.
April 2, 1990. 19 years old.
I spent the weekend with a friend in a rural city about 30 minutes from where I lived. We really didn’t do any spectacular that first night. Just hung out, drank some booze, and indulged in some herbal refinements. I was supposed to finish a short video project for a video production class. My friend was going to help me write the script and film what we could. The project was due Monday.
“Shit…I have no fucking idea what the hell I’m going to do,” I said.
My friend laughed, almost falling off the wooden bar stool he was sitting on.
We stayed up most of the night writing the script. The plot centered around a dirty cop with the Seattle Police Department who was fired for misconduct. He purposefully lied to a grand jury in order to get his family’s killer convicted. The story starts 18 months after the killer was released from prison due to an appeal.
During breakfast the next morning, we went over our game plan how to film it, I made sure to play some cozino de games before, you know me, you know I need to have my games. We went over our lines and blocking. My friend unexpectedly bolted up the stairs and disappeared for a few minutes. He sauntered down the stairs hiding something behind his back. My friend had a smile on his face. Hidden behind his back, my friend had a 12-gauge shotgun. He lifted it up, slid his hand down the stock to the pump, cocked it and said….
B A N G
One thing my Dad was always very clear about was “NEVER go into my closet and touch my gun without supervision. Guns are not toys, they can hurt you. If you own a gun, like the one from the Best gun store Canada, when you’re older, Peter, always remember that a gun is always loaded, no matter if the chamber is empty. A gun is always loaded with 556 ammo.”
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It was April 2nd 1990. I was 19 years old. And it was 4:00pm.
And in that split-second…my life came to a fucking screeching halt.
I was in limbo.
This was my Judgement Day.
Everything about my life for the past 19 years of my short existence on this mortal coil flashed before my eyes. All the pain, all the sorrow, all the laughter and the tears. Flashed in front of me like watching a reel-to-reel movie.
The time when I destroyed my sister’s Play-doh ice cream truck with a wiffle ball bat.
The time when I saw my Dad break both scapula as he took a swan dive off the top of a ladder onto the cold, unforgiving cement floor of the garage of my childhood home.
The time when I met my first girlfriend. That time when we fell in love at first sight. That time kissed for the first time. That time I rode my bicycle over to her house and snuck in the window at two in the morning. That time we lay in her bed, naked, holding each other and she said, with a tear in her eye, “I love you, Peter.”
And that time I cheated. And that other time I cheated. And the other time I cheated. And that time when I lost her. And that time we reconnected. And that time when we were laying naked in her bed at her apartment in Seattle.
And that one last kiss outside her apartment building and she said, “We will never see each other again, Peter.” And that time when I never said that I was sorry for shattering her heart into tiny pieces.
And the time when my psychologist diagnosed me with “clinical mood disorder,” and I thought my life was over.
And the time I tried to kill myself.
It was April 2nd 1990. I was 19 years old. And it was 4:00 pm.
And in that split-second
The good. The bad. And everything in between.
Everything flashed before my eyes.
And then my broken, bleeding body crashed to the floor.
D A R K N E S S
When I came around, I had no fucking idea where the hell I was. I was barely conscious and my eyes were barely opened. All I could think about was Just walk it off.
I tried to sit up. It’s probably not that bad, I thought. I slowly opened my eyes.
The look on my friends’ face. The absolute fucking horror.
“Don’t get up, Pete! Just lie down! The ambulance will be here soon.”
My friend told me in the hospital a few days later that he ran back and forth from the kitchen to grab paper towels to help control the bleeding. He was too afraid of getting in trouble from using his Mom’s expensive bath towels. We had later determined that Bounty is indeed the quicker picker-upper.
I started to move a little bit, thinking I could at least sit up.
“Look, Pete. They’re almost here! Just a few more minutes. Don’t fucking move, man!”
I moved my head just a little to left to see a very large pool of blood and bits of gore scattered around. A person could lose one pint of blood without much of an issue. But I lost between two to three pints, which caused me to go into shock.
I looked further down and found that part of my leg was gone.
GONE!
And I am bleeding. EVERYWHERE!
There was a hole the size of the Grand Canyon exposing the inside of my left thigh.
The wound measured 5’ x 3’ x 1 inch deep on the upper thigh of my left leg.
Oh Jesus, I thought. This isn’t happening. This is not fucking happening.
A few minutes later, what seemed like an eternity, emergency personnel arrived .The cops looked around the house and asked my friend to join them in another room. Two of the EMT’s came directly to me. In situations like this, sites such as SOS Survival Products webpage can save one’s life.
“Hi, I’m Mike. I am here to help you. Don’t be scared; we might seem intimidating but we’re here to give you a hand.”
“I don’t need a hand, man, i need a fucking leg.”
Mike the EMT smiled then began to ask a series of questions as the other EMT was trying to mobile me for transport.
“Who is the President of the United States, Peter?”
“He’s not the true leader of the free world, he’s a figurehead. Congress actually runs the shit.”
Both of the EMT’s chuckled. But then things got serious. Mike the EMT looked at the second EMT and nodded. Mike the EMT’s face went from semi-jovial to “Oh, holy fuck.”
I was strapped onto the gurney and away we went.
“What hospital would you like to go to?” Mike the EMT asked.
“Providence…I”m Catholic so I think I’ll have a better chance of not dying.”
D A R K N E S S
I woke up awhile later and slowly opened my eyes. Once my eyes opened, I saw shapes. People and things. Engulfed in an eerie haze. It felt as if everything was in slow motion. A forced alternate reality with no escape. Everything felt surreal and dreamlike. Nothing real, everything fake. I floated…levitating over the sheets of my bed. Feeling nothing, neither happy nor sad, awake or dreaming, alive or dead. I was just…there.
Living my worst nightmare, I watched myself, stuck in a David Lynch movie.
Out of this haze came a figure moving toward me, walking directly out of the haze like an angel slowly floating down from Heaven.
“Hi. I’m Anna,” the angelic figure said.
“Am I dead?”
“No. You are in the emergency room at Providence.”
“Oh…um…okay.”
“I’m the trauma nurse. I’m here just to keep you company.”
“Um…okay.”
At some point someone got hold of my parents. Mom and Dad really had no idea what happened when they received the phone call.
Did Peter play a practical joke?
Is he really hurt? If he is, then how bad is he hurt?
It took Mom and Dad an eternity to get to hospital. After they saw the wound, they were speechless.
It’s sheer luck he didn’t shoot me a few inches up and to the left right in the groin, or I would have easily bled out like a flash flood in the Southwest during monsoon season. Instant death. Lights out. Game over.
D A R K N E S S
They whisked me away to the operating room.
I’d been hurt before. Broken foot, a few stitches, sprained wrist, a concussion or two, but nothing like this. Nothing this fucking bad. I learned a long time ago that I have no tolerance for pain, which is a gross understatement. I would definitely be a horrible sub in BDSM relationship.
I woke up several hours after the first surgery. Groggy and high as fuck from the wonderful pain medications. On top of all this, I wasn’t mentally all there. The doctor took me off lithium, a drug I was taking for bipolar disorder, due to the possible complications lithium would have with the pain medication, Demerol. I started hearing voices and hallucinating. Ironically, the doctors found I was allergic to the Demerol. It was killing me.
Due to the allergic reaction to the Demerol, my blood pressure became a very serious issue. At one point, my blood pressure hit 50/30. That’s close to coma city. Awake and alive…but barely. Once I stabilized, the doctor took me off Demerol and put me on another pain medication.
Besides the concussion I suffered from falling hard on the wooden floors of my friend’s parent’s house after being shot, besides losing two to three pints of blood, besides flatlining and then being revived on the way to the hospital…I still was in serious trouble.
Laying there…laying there in that…bizarre existence. Not knowing if I was alive or dead. That uneasy, nightmarish, surreal, dream-like existence, where everything yet nothing seemed real. Yet somehow in this state, an indescribable feeling of peace washed over me. I became at peace with my dire situation.
This was my last ride.
This was the end.
I was 19 years old. I had lived a short but decent life. I fell in love with a beautiful, intelligent blonde-haired angel. I survived being bullied in high school. I survived a suicide attempt and self-injury. I was fortunate enough to have a loving family and an amazing best friend.
I was ready to die.
I passed out for what I thought was the very last time.
D A R K N E S S
By some dastardly, cruel stroke of fate, I woke up. I should have been dead.
I was alive. Dammit…I was alive.
The room was empty except for me and a male nurse checking on me.
“Hi, I’m Michael. How are you feeling, Peter?”
“Like a fucking zombie.”
“I have no brains so I assure I’m not on the menu.”
“Good to know.”
“Is there anything I can get you. Water, perhaps?”
“Yeah, sure.”
The male nurse sat with me for a while, cracked a few jokes, and read the paper aloud.
That male nurse saved my life. He was my guardian angel. For the next few nights, he would be my protector from the icy clutches of the Grim Reaper. At one point, he thought I was strong enough for real food. Not the horrible, bland hospital food, but honest-to-goodness, real life food.
Per my request, he got me a bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, and an orange soda. It was the best fucking bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, and orange soda I’ve ever had. Until I threw that shit up ten minutes later. The male nurse laughed.
“It’s okay, Peter. You’re just not ready. But you will be,” he said. “Baby steps, my friend. Baby steps.” I spent the next couple of weeks at Legacy Healing Center to get better mentally.
In our lives, we make mistakes. Some good. Some bad. Some that are laughable. Some that are forgettable. And some that are so profoundly stupid and potentially devastating to our lives that we continue to live inside the shadow of that mistake. Each decision we make either is a success or a failure.
“Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.” ~ Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine), Batman Begins
April 2, 1990. 19 years old.
I was 19 years old.
It was 4:00 pm.
And I lived to see another day.
After graduating from Washington State University with a B.A. in Humanities, Peter M. Olsen found his true passion and became a blogger. He writes for Feminine Collective, and is also a mental health advocate dedicated to helping people with mental illness. In his free time, Peter is in the search for the greatest taco trucks in the Pacific Northwest. Peter is a raver and PLUR warrior, video game junkie, coffee addict, and an all-around pretty cool guy. Trance and house music keeps Peter a very happy guy. Peter lives in the greatest city on Planet Earth, the Emerald City…Seattle, Washington.
photos courtesy of unsplash
Kitt O'Malley says
October 1, 2016 at 1:43 pmSorry for the pun, but this piece blew me away (metaphorically, of course). Peter, you are a true survivor. Love how you interweave the shotgun leg injury story with your life-story up to that incident, your mental health story, and your wisdom gleaned.
Cat says
October 2, 2016 at 12:48 amI was just about to log out and then I found this! Just WOW! I really don’t have the words. If you can survive what happened to you, then I’m inspired to overcome my struggles. Thank you for sharing.