Freaky Friday

**Note:  I'm taking a break from my normal blogging about Annie, adoption and our little family to relay an anecdote about one of the weirdest, frightening, most hilarious days of my life.  It involves my sister...and yes, I have received her permission to write about this mishap, which is good because I think it's too funny not to be shared.  I hope you find it as funny as we do, because I have laughed hysterically every single time I've thought of this all weekend.  Enjoy**

Last Friday was the first day I felt like we were back in our routine.  Rob had gone back to work, the house was de-Christmased and (somewhat) clean and it was payday, which means bank, grocery shopping and bill paying day.

Annie and I got out first thing in the morning and hit the bank, Sam's and Crest.  Annie had lunch while I put away groceries and unloaded the dishwasher, then she went down for her nap.  I had just settled in to pay a couple of bills on-line when my phone rang.  It was my sister, Kyla.  I answered, fully expecting an update on the pepto pink paint job she was doing on my niece's bedroom.  

Instead, I heard her frantic voice say, "Melissa...is Annie down for her nap?"  

I replied, "Yes" as my heart rate increased and I wondered what the heck was happening.  

"Oh crap!" she sobbed, "I just got my hand stuck in a paint roller and the kids can't help me get it out and it hurts so bad!"  

At this point, I wanted to laugh, but the fact that my tough-as-nails, used to emergencies, nurse sister was this hysterical had me pretty worried.  

She went on..."I'm going to have the kids get my keys and I'm going to drive over to your house.  You have to help me!"  

I asked if she was able to drive and she told me that her left hand was the one that was stuck, so she thought she could do it.  (Her house is only a two to three minute drive through the neighborhood to mine).

We ended our call and I grinned and giggled wondering how in the world a person could get their hand stuck in a paint roller.

After what seemed like an eternity, I saw her truck pull into my driveway, so I hurried outside to help. 

She got out of the truck and I saw it.  Yep.  There was a paint roller stuck to her hand!   She was wearing shorts and a paint stained t-shirt, socks and her red slippers.  Her 8 year-old twins were not far behind wearing no shoes and frightened looks on their faces.

As we were walking into the house, she explained that she was trying to push the disposable roller onto the metal frame.  She had her hand on one end of the roller and the other end was on her kitchen counter.  When she pushed, the skin between her thumb and her wrist was pinched between the metal roller frame and the plastic of the disposable roller.  Here's a picture I took right after she got here:

We tried everything we could think of...cooking oil, water (we were hoping to add a little lubrication, so her skin would slip out of the roller)...I tried using a butter knife to lift the plastic core of the disposable roller, but any movement of the roller, even slight movement, caused Kyla to scream out in pain.  I also tried using a sharp knife to cut the core of the roller, but it would not budge.  

We texted the picture of our situation to our step-mom, my husband, her husband, her nurse co-workers...anyone we could think of...trying to find a way to free her hand.  Nothing anyone suggested helped and because of the angle of the roller, we were limited on what kinds of tools we could use to cut it.

I called the doctor's office up the street from us to see if they had a tool that could cut the roller, but it closed at Noon.  I told her I could run her up to the after hours clinic, but before we could devise a plan of what to do with our kids (her two and Annie-who was still sleeping), Kyla's husband, Greg, called with a suggestion from someone at his school.  They thought the fire department might have something that could cut through the roller.  I went to work looking for the closest fire station to my house.  Well, the numbers to the fire stations aren't too easily found...for good reason, I suppose, but with my sister crying in my kitchen and her kids hiding in my closet in the back of the house because they didn't want to hear their mom scream, I would've given anything to find a phone number.  

That's when I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to call 911.  For a paint roller stuck to my sister's hand.  :)  Oh dear.  I had laughed when I heard such calls over the scanner during my days as a reporter!  I took a deep breath, punched 911 on my phone and heard, "911...what is your emergency?"

I wound up getting transferred to an EMSA dispatcher, who thankfully didn't start cackling as soon as I told him our situation.  He told me help was on the way and proceeded to ask me a bunch of "standard" questions, i.e. "Is she conscious?  Is she bleeding?", etc.  Meanwhile, my sister, the nurse...trained to handle emergencies is sitting at my kitchen counter absolutely mortified...and still very much in pain.

The paramedics arrived a few minutes later with lights on, but luckily no sirens, walked into my kitchen and asked my sister, "What did you do?!"  They were so kind.  Slightly amused at the predicament Kyla was in, but kind.  

Both medics said they had no idea what they'd find when they arrived.  Like me, and just about everyone else we told about it, they could not picture how someone could get their hand stuck in a paint roller.  Apparently dispatch was just as curious and amused.  My sister said they called in on the radio to get a status update and asked if medi-flight was needed! :)

In the end, it took more than a half hour for the medics to remove the roller from Kyla's hand.  They used a combination of a bone drill, my kitchen scissors, a flat-head screwdriver, rescue shears, an x-acto knife and some other medical equipment to cut the roller.  Here's a pic I snapped as they worked on it:

Who knew a plastic paint roller could be so tough to remove!  The medic who finally freed Kyla's hand said about a half-inch of her skin was pinched in the roller.  I took this pic right after the roller was removed:

And this is what it looks like two days later:

Luckily, the damage was minimal and while it hurts to do some things, like clap, Kyla is on the mend.  Which is good, because I haven't stopped laughing about it all weekend long!  

~M