FALLING OFF OF BUILDINGS

Yeah, it's not really that fun. Just ask Ryan. He knows. I don't have any pictures of it, thank goodness, but Wednesday the 17th is when it happened. My visiting teachers were over, it was about 11am when I got a call from Ryan. He says, "I need your advice on something." I say, "What kind of advice?" Ryan: "Well, my chest and my left shoulder hurt." Me: "What did you do?" Ryan: "I fell off a roof."

Here's the story, but Ryan tells it much better. He was at work by the Horse Mesa Dam replacing the roof on some kind of a big old shed that had a very poorly framed porch. He was out on the porch striping off the old roofing when all of the sudden the porch started sinking while the rest of the building looked like it was rising. It just collapsed, as it seemed to him, in slow motion. He landed on his feet but then immediately fell over, as what was left of the porch's roof fell on top of his upper body. When the roof had first fallen it was vertical, then it flipped over so the bottom was facing up when it landed on him. He tried to push it off, but it was too heavy. His coworkers, who were working on other things nearby but not right next to him at the time, realized his predicament a couple of minutes later and pulled what was left of the roof off.

The damage? He went to a doctor the next day for x-rays and amazingly nothing was broken! The doctor really thought he might have torn something in his left shoulder because it and his ribs were really squished and sore, but nothing was torn or fractured. The doctor was very surprised. His left shoulder and elbow are still bruised, but nothing was broken. It didn't really hit me how seriously he could have been injured until a few days later. He and I both know how blessed he was. We count new blessings everyday each time we think about what happened. He has healed amazingly fast as well. I know the Lord watches over us, and Ryan and I both are truly thankful for that.