We've always lived out in the country; with the exception of when we were building our last house. There is a very good reason for that. You see, when all of the kids are home, we are not very conducive to living in a neighborhood...it goes back to that "rules and regulations" thing. Living out of the city limits has allowed us to raise all sorts of animals and my children did not grow up in front of a televisions set, but outside, running and playing. One would assume that by living in the country, experiencing "riff raff", usually reserved for the inner city, could not be found. Not so...or at least not for us. One such incident occurred merely less than a year ago.
Robby and I had gone to bed, while Ryan was still up watching the best "feel good movie" of all time, "Rudy". We were sleeping peacefully one minute and the next...WHAM! BAM! Ryan hit our bedroom door with full speed banging on it while screaming, "They're murdering her!" Although Robby and I jumped straight out of bed, I clearly was not awake. You know, your eyes are open and you can speak, but you are still really asleep. We were all in a PANIC standing there. Robby quickly opened our closet door and pulled two pistols out of their holsters (still not really sure why 2...maybe he thought he was in one of those "Die Hard" movies.), told Ryan to run upstairs and grab the shotgun and gave me instructions to call 911. Heading out of the bedroom, armed with his two pistols, I became acutely aware of something...Robby was wearing NOTHING! I brought this to his attention and he remedied this by donning his red swim trunks (well, it least it was SOMETHING). As he headed for the front door, I became afraid of who he might find there and stayed in my closet and called 911. Upon speaking to the dispatcher, all I could tell him was, "I don't really know what's going on. Someone was beating on my door and saying something about someone trying to murder them." They would send someone out.
Still sitting in my closet (because I was afraid to get close to a window, for fear of being shot), I finally became awake enough to sneak just outside my bedroom door. I sat in a corner, on the floor, with my oversized T-Shirt pulled over my knees and became a little more aware of my surroundings. I could see around the corner that Robby and Ryan were standing there holding their weapons. "Pssst...Robby, did ya'll ever find out who was beating on the door?", I whispered. "YES, BARBARA...she's sitting right here in your living room!" I peeked a little further around the corner to indeed find a young woman sitting between the 2 armed guards. The woman spoke in a very rural accent saying, "I hope I don't get no blood on this here chair, 'cause I hit my head when I jumped outta that truck and this man here told me to sit in this chair and not to move." GREAT! This poor woman had apparently just jumped from a moving vehicle and now she had two guys (one physically wide-eyed and shaking...Ryan...) standing over her like prison guards.
Well, the story was, that 2 men (one her ex-boyfriend who had just been released from jail that day for aggravated assault...I know, go figure) had beaten her up and then were taking her to the lake (just down the road from our house) to drown her. There were some fishermen night fishing, so they decided to make the loop and go back; this is when she decided to jump and ended up at our front door. FINALLY (good thing no one was having a shoot-out or actually injured) someone from the sheriff's office arrived. The officer reminded me of Barney Fife...sort of. He emerged from his vehicle wearing every piece of equipment that had most likely ever been issued to him. As if this was not enough to weigh him down, he was also quite portly, as well. I'm glad that the "suspect" was not lurking around somewhere, because I'm not certain that this guy could even defend himself, must less any of us.
Upon interviewing this poor girl, the officer decided that she needed medical attention (no kidding...she had just jumped from a moving vehicle!) so he called for an ambulance. He took her outside to fill out some paperwork and we followed along to wait for the ambulance. And then we watched it pass our house and go into the neighborhood just up the road! Perhaps, this was because the sheriff didn't have his car lights on to indicate where he was located... OK, so Mr. Sheriff, for some unknown reason, decided to try to catch the ambulance...on foot! He began running UP the hill toward where the ambulance had turned. Robby and I turned and looked at each other in awe, as Robby said to me, "We will have to call for another ambulance, you know." "Why?", I inquired. "Because that guy is going to have heart failure and they will have to attend to him." Well, he finally came to his senses after running just a ways and made it back to our house...breathing quite heavily and sweating profusely. Robby offered him a bottle of water and Ryan pointed out that we had some Twinkies in the pantry that might be of some interest to him too.
The ambulance did make it back to our house and the EMT's got out and began to examine our patient. By this time, she had come down off of that "adrenaline rush" and was slumped in the middle of our driveway, leaning against the sheriff's car. They were filled in on what had happened to her and began putting a neck brace around her neck when I heard one say," Hey...did you hit your head...it looks like it's cut! OH MY GOSH!!!
Well,this was not the first( and I'm sure not the last) late night incident that has ended up at our
front door. We may not live in the city and have robberies or drive-by shootings, but we do have woods and a lake...and apparently this is a big draw to some criminals!
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