excerpt CHAPTER 22 – THE COUNTY FAIR

…I glanced back at my daughter chasing down yet another loose, rampaging steer, and saw the livestock agent go to her aid. Before I realized what was happening, I saw the steer flip the agent, and then flip my daughter. The announcer immediately called for the ambulance that was always waiting at the sidelines, and with a worried voice, commented that the agent was down and not moving. He coached everyone to move away so that he could be assisted. I saw my daughter limping off with her captured steer….
…Because of the chaotic situation of the ambulance, and then everyone trying to help the livestock agent, rumors were flying about my daughter and her injury, but no one really knew what had happened. Rumors, morphing as they do, went from “she got knocked down, and her jaw was hit” to “her jaw was hit hard and dislocated” to “her jaw was dislocated, I wonder about her teeth?” to “her jaw is dislocated, her front teeth are all knocked out, she’s bleeding badly and wandered off to find her mom!” So my adult son was running around looking for his sister, blood streaming down her face from all her teeth being knocked out, wandering around comatose not knowing where her mom was!
What great relief he felt when he saw the worst had not happened! He agreed that I did need to go to the ER with his sister. We chatted briefly about him needing to find our 4-H club families to help pack up the trailer, then drive the other kids home in the truck so they could feed livestock at the farm and get to bed. I would call from the hospital with an update, but probably wouldn’t be home until 1 or 2am, as it was already nearly 10pm….