Went to my family doctor the other day to have a final fitness report before I go in for surgery next week. Come next Tuesday there will no longer be a hole in the left side of my chest, it will be flapped over with muscle tissue for filler and sewn shut! Then this should be the end to this nonsense once it's all healed over.!
So the wife is driving and we have our Chrysler 300 and we're on our way home using our very well traveled hi way, I haven't been driving much because of the prescribed medication that they have me on.
Now we're cruising along in the passing lane until we get near our exit ramp, there are several oncoming ramps that we are passing and it is the quitting time of day.
All of a sudden there was a very loud thump and bump sound from under the car. There was a piece of road debris on the roadway and we had passed over it.
Now there was a pickup in front of us and a tractor trailer in front of him and I'm sure if what I think I saw it came off neither of these vehicles.
It appeared to me to have been a scrap brake shoe off a large truck that must have fallen off of someone's scrap truck.
Now we don't know if the guy in front clipped this and made it move but when we passed over it, it was high enough to puncture our gas tank! What a lucky shot!
So we get of onto our exit and at this point we didn't know the tank was leaking until a guy pulled up next to us and informed of the trail of gasoline.
Luckily this is a one lane exit and it has plenty of room on the shoulder. Now I get out smelling the gas and seeing the trail, looking under the car a full flow of gasoline coming out.
Now I had told my wife to safely exit the car and go far enough away and call 911. Next thing I see is her standing in the gas retrieving her belongings. I yelled at her to get out of the gas and get her stuff out on the passenger side. All I can envision is some moron coming along and throwing out a cigarette and lighting this off!
The car had about 3/4 of a tank and it all drained across the roadway. By the time the fire apparatus and police arrived it had mostly evaporated but they still but absorbent down to clean it up
The one Firefighter looked underneath and said the hole was about the size of a silver dollar?
So the roll back came and hauled the car away to the garage so it can get its hole repaired as well!
What a great day we had!
Wife says she's no longer going to drive the Chrysler she says to many bad things happen to her when she does!

Any plans we make launch the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle and Chaos Theory both combine into motion and in trying evade the obstacles to meet the simple goal, I feel like I'm being shot at. Typical day around our house. Three times a day I ask, "What is broken now that you aren't telling me about?" I was trying to go to bed last night but there was a half inch of water on the floor in the guest bathroom.

Macduff: "Confusion now hath made his masterpiece"

Macbeth, Act 2, scene 3.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Wow !! Glad you all are ok . Thats a very dangerous issue. They will have to replace your tank. Now days they are made of A B S plastic. You all take care and prayers for up coming surgery.Keep us posted

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Spin The Wheel

Before your wife gives up on the 300, share this story from my mom with her. The Chrysler 300 came out in 1954, the 300 back then stood for 300 horsepower! Mom had a 1953 Newport, the exact same car with a slightly smaller carburetor and 285 horsepower. The automatic transmission was just starting to become a reality, these cars had a clutch that you only used for Park, Reverse, or First. My mom was a Hot Blond back then and they lived in Huntington California. Mom also had a lead foot for the gas pedal and pretty green eyes with very long eyelashes, for the troopers that pulled her over, she never got a ticket( until 1984). She would challenge Cadillacs and Buicks at just about any stop light, and leave them behind in a cloud of blue tire smoke.

My folks got divorced in 1980. In about 1981-2 dad and I were at a car show, and saw a '53 Newport. Dad said the only thing wrong with those cars, was the clutch only seemed to last about 2 months! I said, If mom hadn't drag raced every Catty she found, they might have lasted longer. He was dumbfounded, he never knew that about the woman he was married to for 29 years!

Maybe she should have more fun in her Chrysler!

Ivan

I'm glad you are in good medical hands and pray all goes well.

I'm also glad that you both escaped injury from your road incident.

In 1970, I was cruising down I-75 heading to a Reds game when traffic started to scatter a few cars ahead of me. A high cube truck had thrown a universal joint and it had bounced through the windshield of a trailing car causing a multi-car accident with a fatality. Cured me of drafting.

PS: let us know when you go in for surgery so we can ramp up our prayers.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

A friend had one of his 90 gallon tanks get ruptured, but I've long forgotten how. What I do remember however was he had trouble getting his insurance company to pay for the hazmat clean up, which was NOT cheap.

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

Good to hear that you'll finally get your chest portal closed up.
I'm looking forward to a positive report next Tuesday.

Bummer 'bout the car though. I am glad that nobody was hurt.

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Keep on Chooglin'

Glad you are ok and good luck with the medical stuff!

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Hue 68 noli me tangere

You sound like me. I often think of medical stuff as "nonsense", even though I realize it's necessary. Well, some of it, anyway. There seems to be a lot of built in redundancy to some of it, especially when it comes to the ever increasing amount of paperwork.

I've apparently missed your telling why this is necessary, but I do hope everything goes well for you. As Rusty says, do keep us posted.

There will be lots of people, including myself, thinking of you.

Let's see...a hole that leaks gas and is potentially combustible. The joke writes itself.

Glad your hole is about to be sewed shut. Hope all continues to progress to a healthy conclusion. Mrs. Bigride and I will be praying.

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Just pretend this is witty.

Glad to read that your medical situation will be remedied soon.
The gas leak was a highly dangerous. That stuff really can blow up with a vengeance.

In Nam during my tour in battalion recon as a staff sergeant my team was assigned to scout an NVA camp, and to damage it if we could at little risk to our team. When we finished the survey I noticed a truck that had an eternal gas tank. I took one Marine's M14 and one armor piercing round and one tracer to the top of the mag. After getting everyone ready to get out of there on the double, I shot the tank with the armor piercing round and then followed that with the tracer. It was the biggest fireball I ever saw before or after. We did not wait around to see what the collateral damage was. When I filed the after action report I stated that pursuant to the order to damage the base if safely possible, we did blow up one truck but for safety sake we did not remain to assess collateral damage.

A while back I was driving a pick up just south of St. Louis. I didn't see the road debris in front of me and rolled over it with both right side wheels. The front wheel took it like a champ but the rear didn't. Whatever I hit blew the rear tire and punched a hole through the inside of the wheel. I was able to ease off the gas and roll to the shoulder. The wheel and tire were a complete disaster. Fortunately insurance covered the loss quite well.

Wish you luck and saying a prayer for your surgery.

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"Very Dangerous-you go first!"

Thanks for the kind words and thoughts guys I do appreciate it!
This should be interesting come next Tuesday, while I have who I believe to be the two finest surgeons doing this reconstruction surgery I will be on the table for possibly 5 to 8 hours. Depending on where they pull this muscle from I do expect to lose some movement/ dexterity with my left arm. I am left handed! I can't wait to see where they pull this muscle from and how far it is stretched because they leave this connected so it maintains a blood flow.
So my hole repair with a weeks hospital stay should be at least $75,000
Now we heard from the insurance company and the hole repair for the Chrysler will be $2100.
I'm glad that I have the insurance to cover both of them!

....good thing about my house that the water heater is in the garage. And I did break one time, but a squeegee and broom were all it took.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"