So yesterday I had my first real shock to the heart as a parent.  All you parents out there know what I'm talking about I'm sure.  The moment when something happens to your kids and everything stops and terror engulfs you.  It was supposed to be a fun day at the park with the kids celebrating Great Grandma Goldenstein's birthday, but only a few minutes in, something happened that I'll never forget.

We were in Benson, MN visiting Ann's family and headed to Ambush Park.  This is the same park we've gone to for the last handful of years so we were pretty familiar with it.  Admittedly, this was the first year the temperature was under 100 degrees, that along with the kids being one year older, everyone was much more active this year.  Along with a 'standard' climbing structure for kids available to play on, there were also two death traps there as well.  I was feeling good that the first one still intimidated my kids.  It was one of those old 'three man merry-go-rounds'.  Here is a picture that is similar, but this is a single person spinning pole versus a three person one (just imagine a little bigger base).  I knew if my kids wanted to do that, one of them would be tossed off, so I was glad that neither of them had the guts to try it.

So the other item was an old school slide.  I'm talking about the kind that would be outlawed by child safety advocates.  Unfortunately, I forgot to snap a photo.  Admittedly, I was still a bit frazzled when I left for Rochester that a blog post and photo were the last things on my mind.  However, I did Google a bit and found what I think is the exact slide (albeit a small picture).

If you looked at the picture of the slide, you can probably guess where this post is going.  You probably noticed the small girl at the top about to plunge to her death; she's only intensifying the flashback as she appears to be about Audrey's size as well.  To finish the set up, the Ambush Park slide was identical to the pictured slide with one exception.  It did have grass all around the slide, however, there were cement/blacktop footings for each post to go in the ground about 16" in diameter.

Back to the 'fun'.  Audrey and Josh were loving life as they went down the 'fast slide' as they called it.  I was standing by the steps for safety along with refereeing the kids.  Audrey was having a hard time with Josh getting too close to her as she climbed the ladder to the top.  So I would have to tell him to wait, but with every step, she'd peek back to make sure he wasn't encroaching on her space.  Ann was on the other side of the slide towards the bottom of the slide watching as the kids came down overcome with laughter.  Everything was nice...at the moment.

I'm not sure what caused Audrey to do what she did, however, when she started to slide down one time, after descending about a foot, she started falling over one of the railings towards the side opposite me.  My only guess is that she was looking back to make sure Josh wasn't getting too close and just lost her sense of balance and with the 2" guard rails, and there was nothing there to stop her.  Here is where time started bending.  It's so weird.  Events are happening in the slowest of slow motion, yet occur so fast that you hardly have time to comprehend what is going on.  I guess you could say your brain/reactions are in super slo-mo as well, but in either case it was a horrific scene for Ann and I.  At this point, Audrey was probably eight or nine feet above the ground doing a 'rail grind' on the slide but with each descending inch, her body was moving more and more over the edge.  At about five feet to impact, Audrey had completely left the slide and was rocketing towards the ground.  Her body was basically parallel to the ground at this point, feet still towards bottom of the slide, but her body had rolled over so she was heading face first to the ground.  Her momentum was carrying her down and forward towards the 'landing' of the slide.

Here is the moment that I'll never ever forget, and it's making me almost sick to my stomach to write about.  Now, I've watched all kinds of 'crazy video' shows of home videos of skateboarders, rollerbladers, etc. having extreme wipeouts.  The kind that makes you cringe when you see it.  Admittedly, I usually can 'stomach' the original shot in live motion, but I have to usually turn away during the super slo-mo close-up versions.  That said, no video I've seen to date held anything over what I was about to see.  Audrey hit the ground with the loudest thud/smack I've ever heard for a wipe out.  I'm convinced I 'felt' it.  The worst part was what made the smack.  Audrey's face/head lined up perfectly to hit one of the cement footings for the slide.  Both Ann and I rushed towards Audrey and Ann was going to beat me there since it was on her side so I was watching her for a reaction as I ran towards them.  As Ann was scrambling towards Audrey, she had a look of terror in her eyes and ran with her hands over her mouth.

During this, Audrey (probably in shock) was just laying there face first in the ground not moving or making sound.  The scenarios were playing out in my head as I ran over there.  Worst case scenario, she's lying there dead.  Best case scenario, her face is absolutely caved in and her face/head is going to be a bloody pulp.  Obviously since I'm writing about this so candidly, the worst case scenario didn't happen.  As Ann picked her up, I could not see her face yet, but Audrey finally let out 'the scream'. You know, the kind kids build up after an injury where there are a few seconds of silence and non-breathing before unleashing it to the world.  However, Ann's face didn't look any more relieved than it originally did, so the 'best case scenario' was still a possibility.

After what seemed like running a marathon, I finally got to them and Audrey looked my way.  To my utter and complete surprise, her face was intact.  I took her from Ann to look at her fully expecting at any moment for the blood to start streaming down her face like Carrie White in Stephen King's Carrie.  It never happened.  Audrey must have tilted her head down a little bit before smacking the footing because the 'damage' was on top of her forehead, right on the hair line.  She had gravel, about the size you put into an aquarium, embedded in her head that took me several minutes to get out, but given the circumstances, I couldn't have asked for a better result.  With no real ice bags to use, we resorted to icing her head with a Diet Coke can.  We had to bribe her with Skittles...one Skittle for every 10 seconds of icing.  After 5-10 minutes of icing and examining the cut, I decided to take her to the ER to have her cut looked at.  It looked like they might want to glue it possibly and since we are over, way over, our health insurance deductible, we run to the hospital every chance we get.  The ER decided not to do anything with the cut, and we were given a clean bill of health; along with instructions for watching for concussion symptoms which I know all too much about.

All in all this was hardly worse that her last accident she had up at grandma's where she face planted out of the wagon.  Below is a little highlight real of Audrey's injuries.  It's amazing her face is still as beautiful as ever after all the shenanigans.  The first two pictures are after taking Audrey to the Benson ER.  The third picture is just a repost of the 'damage' after falling off the wagon when visiting grandma.  The forth picture was when she face planted on the hard 'ice snow' while playing outside last winter with Josh.  The final picture was a combination platter.  She injured herself falling outside giving her some pretty sweet scabs, only to come in a few days later to try to jump off something in our living room and the Berber carpet ripped off all the scabbing when she used her face for a landing.  You can read the social services post for accounts of her 'gracefulness'.

She was in bright spirits during the first two pictures because they gave her a Beanie Baby for being such a good patient, and I have to brag that she is an extremely good patient!  She never moved a muscle as they examined her or cleaned the out the cut (hopefully Ann will blog about her 'examination' she had a few days prior because of her constant complaining of stomach pain).  Audrey was so excited to show Mom the purple bear-fly (purple because of tinge of purple in the wings) from the doctor I think she forgot all about her wipe out.  Although upon spotting the slide again, she was quick to point out, "That slide right there, that slide, that slide is dangerous.  My head hurts..."