Malcolm Dykes: Free At Last

A most comical event happened recently here at Al Asad Air Force Base Iraq where I am presently stationed supporting our military.

As I entered the shower units near my living quarters to prepare for the night’s work, I found one of my fellow workers trying to unlock one of the units.

I just assumed it was stuck and he was trying to open the door that only opens inwardly to shower. 

Come to find out another worker was stranded inside unable to get the lock to release.

After many attempts to free the man, we would be rescuers decided to employ drastic means.

My partner in response was a large burly man from Kenya that could play line backer for the Green Bay Packers and after ramming the door with his broad shoulders like a battering ram, the  door finally flung open.

With relief, the poor soul, an Indian man from India, was free at last after being stranded about 10 minutes.

Both of us rescuers were early to shower or the poor fellow could have been in the stall much longer had we not showed up.

As he thanked us I told him he fulfilled the little nursery rhyme of the man who couldn’t keep his wife.

“Peter Peter pumpkin eater;

Had a wife and couldn’t keep her.

He put her in a pumpkin shell;

And there he kept her very well.”

I had them both chuckling as I said Peter put his wife in a pumpkin shell and our Indian brother was kept in the shower well!!

Free at last.

The next day I saw the freed victim once again in the shower units and I had him chuckling again saying I’ve heard of breaking and entering but never breaking and outing!

He will never forget that breaking and outing.

That was funny but I was told of another similar episode a few years ago that was not.

Another contractor came up missing not reporting for work on one of these overseas military bases.

He was finally found hours later in a shower stall with a jammed locked door dead with a heart attack.

Apparently the long duration and stress of being stranded took its toll.

I was reminded of a similar situation only in an outdoor setting going with a friend to run a trap line some 20 years ago.

The late Rev. Harvey King was an avid outdoors man and included deer hunting and running trap lines.

As we walked the small creek out as it meandered through the Leake County woods checking the traps, we found one tripped and the paw of a coon in the trap.

That’s all that remained.

I can only imagine how determined the coon was taking drastic measures to free itself.

Somewhere in those woods there was a 3 legged coon.

Free at last.

Then there is the movie ‘127 Hours’ based on a true account of a young hiker and mountain climber who freed himself from a boulder in a remote place who had wedged his lower arm.

He also succumbed to drastic measures by amputating the lower part at the elbow or face a slow death by starvation.

Free at last.

I watched a YouTube scene where a brave a caring game warden braved hyperthermia to rescue a half grown deer who had broken through an iced over river.

There are many other instances I could share of unusual and life threatening trappings. 
 

Just be careful when out and about especially in the great outdoors and even in the safe comforts of home.

Free at last.

God bless you and God bless America.