Seasoned with Salt

The Glassy Pond

In East Tennessee the winters can range from extremely cold to relatively warm and mild and often both within the same week. Some of my fondest memories have come in the middle of the winter when a warm front moves into the region and I can enjoy being outside for a while. It is during these warm fronts that I have experienced some of the strangest behavior in people. Everyone wants to be outside and it seems that for a moment everyone forgets that it is the middle of winter and gets an early case of spring fever.

It was during one of these warm fronts on a Sunday evening in January 1997 that I was working second shift for the police department as a rookie police officer. I was enjoying driving down Highway 321 with my windows down when my police radio broadcasted a call for my zone. It was a 10-39, (injured person), at a warehouse in our industrial park area and it was close to where I was located. I told the dispatcher that I was en-route and within a minute I was at the scene trying to find where the victim was located.

A middle aged man met me in the parking lot wearing a flannel shirt and old blue jeans. He appeared to be a factory worker who probably struggled to make enough money to support his family. His weather face told the story of a man who drank too much Pabst Blue Ribbon and smoked too many generic cigarettes. He waved me down and told me that one of his co-workers was hurt badly in the back of the warehouse. I parked my car and we hurried into the back door of the building not knowing what to expect.

I have always heard old wives tales that everyone has an identical twin somewhere in the world. That someone in the world looks identical to us in some way or another but grew up and lived a completely different life. Honestly, I never believed it until the day I met Jon. I passed it off as some old story that should be filed away with the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. On that warm winter evening I was about to meet my identical twin and the person who would shape my life more than any other person I have ever met. The next hour would be one of those moments in your life that you never forget.

Inside the warehouse I found a man lying face down underneath a large press. The press was some type of machine that looked like some type of torture chamber from an old James Bond movie. The press itself was the size of a refrigerator lying on its side that used hydraulics to force the end of it inside a chamber leaving only 2 inches of space around it. One the end of it was two pieces of steel that protruded out of it like jousts.

The man who met me in the parking lot told me that his co-worker was inside the machine when it came on and crushed his body inside the press. I sat and tried to picture how this could have happened but I cannot see how a person would not have been cut in two by the machine. The man lying in the floor looked to be in one piece and was not bleeding. His feet were moving which made me think that his spine had not been severed by the trauma of the incident.

I could tell that he was in an immeasurable amount of pain. I told him who I was and began talking to the victim. I could tell that he was on the verge of going into shock so I knew to keep him talking and to keep him focused on the will to live. I also wanted to keep him still so that he would not do further damage to his spine. Little did I know how badly he was injured.

He told me his name was Jon and he spelled it the same way I did. He had only been married a few years like I had and he had a small child at home. He had just started the job with this company the day prior to this incident. Jon was born in September 1970 only a few days after I was born. We were both born in Knoxville and we very well could have been born in the same hospital. Jon had brown hair and brown eyes. His skin was olive colored just like mine and we both had the same type of nose and facial features. The more I looked at Jon the more I saw myself in him. I stared in disbelief as I saw a man that looked exactly like me. He was the same height, same weight, and he even had a pair of old blue jeans on that looked just like my favorite pair that I had at home. He was wearing an old cotton t-shirt that looked just like my favorite t-shirt that I liked to wear. This man could have passed for an identical twin. We looked exactly the same with one major exception, he was lying on the floor about to die and I was the one trying to rescue him.

We continued talking about all that we had in common as I tried to keep him focused on anything but the pain that he was in. He talked about how much he loved his wife and wished that she could be here with him. I thought the same thing. If I was in his shoes I would not want to be away from my loved ones. We waited on what seemed like an eternity for the ambulance to get there. I continued consoling him and trying to keep him stable so that he could be transported to the hospital and hopefully get some help.

When the ambulance arrived they immediately hooked a heart monitor to him and began assessing his vital signs. They cut his shirt off and discovered that he had two holes through his chest, one through his abdomen and another closer to his heart. The holes matched the two metal spikes that protruded out of the end of the press. It seemed that nearly every bone in his body was broken. His rib cage felt like a broken egg shell and he had suffered terrible trauma to his vital organs. The more we examined him the more we were amazed that he was even alive. The strangest thing was that the two holes through his chest and abdomen did not bleed. It appeared that the metal spikes were very hot and possibly cauterized the holes after he was stabbed.

The paramedics and I attached a spine board to Jon and prepared to roll him over on his back. I told him what we were about to do and then we rolled him over. Instantly the heart monitor began to make a horrible sound and Jon’s head rolled over and his eyes looked straight at me. It was as if a light went off behind his eyes and he just stared at me blankly. I tried to talk to him but there was no response. For an instant it was like looking into a glassy pond and seeing your own reflection. It was the strangest most frightening experience that I have ever had.

The paramedics began doing CPR on Jon and told me to go set up an LZ, (Landing Zone), for Life-star, the regional medical helicopter. I ran out of the warehouse and met my Lieutenant. We found a field near the warehouse and circled our patrol cars around an area that was free of power lines or other obstructions. We held our flashlights with orange wands on the end of them to help signal in the helicopter. Soon we heard the thundering blades of the aircraft coming in high above us. It sounded like a stampede of horses as it approached the LZ. Once it landed the paramedics rushed Jon out to the helicopter and I could see that they were still doing CPR on him. After he boarded the helicopter it lifted off and soon the sound of the stampeding horses faded into the night as I watched the lights of the helicopter fade into the clear sky above me.

I stood in the field wandering what had just happened. Did this really happen? Did I just see my identical twin fly off into the night? I never got to spend time talking about what he liked. What is his family like? Did we have the same interests? Where did he go to school? Did he enjoy sports or have a pet? Did he have faith in God or was he a Buddhist or something? Where is his spirit now?

I turned my flashlight off and walked back to my patrol car. I felt the warm breeze blowing and thought about how much I liked these warm nights in the middle of the winter. I wonder if Jon liked them as much as I did. I would bet that he did and I guess if I had to pick a day to die I would want it to be on one of these warm nights. I wonder if I would be as courageous as he was when it comes time for me to die. Would I be thinking of my family and how this will impact them or will I selfishly be thinking only of myself and the pain that I am in. I like to think that I would be like Jon. I hope so at least.

The time I spent with Jon was one of those moments in your life, those moments when everything stood still for just a second and you knew that you would never be the same. How could two people who were born at the same time, look identical, have the same name, and live in the same small town go through life and not know each other. Why is he dead and I am still alive? I am the one who chose to be a cop and he chose to be a factory worker. Wouldn’t the law of averages tell you that I should be the one who was lying in the floor with two holes through my chest and not him?

Jon’s death became a turning point in my life. I started thinking about my life and what I had to show for it. More importantly I began dwelling on my death and the eventual reality that I would die one day. Prior to this I never really thought much about death. I was invincible like every other guy my age and the thought of dying never crossed my mind. I started having terrible nightmares. Dreams of falling and dreams of drowning began to haunt me every time I closed my eyes. I would see Jon staring at me after we rolled him over. I saw myself looking into a glassy pond. I would wake up screaming to find my wife rocking me in her arms because she could hear me struggling while I was still asleep.

Over time the dreams started to fade but Jon was never far from my thoughts. Jon taught me more in that hour that we spent together than all the teachers and professors I had spent hours studying under. Life is precious, life is short, and there is more to this life than what we see every day. Jon’s death gave me a broader perspective of the life we live in and he shattered my world view of what I have been created for. I felt like a cancer patient whose doctor told them that they may live a long life or they may die in their sleep tonight. The words of an old Baptist preacher that I heard once when I was a kid came to mind, “Live each day as if it were your last.”

Now to decide on how to live as if today were my last day.

Posted by Jon at September 12, 2004 04:03 PM