It is quiet once again

Looking downstream from bridge

Looking upstream from bridge

Temporary crossing

Although, the bridge work isn't completed, they pulled out the horrible pump and the woods has returned to its natural silence, at least at night.  Over the weekend they made it so I could cross the bridge and save the ten mile detour. I imagine it will be the same again this weekend. They still have some finish work to do. Most of which is in my yard damage and driveway. The way the road looks right now people would tend to drive into my driveway easier than going down the road.  I am just happy not to hear the pump noise and breathe all the diesel fumes.

Unfortunately, it didn't happen fast enough to save me from bronchitis. I have been coughing for 4 weeks and finally had to break down and go to doctor Saturday. Hopefully, between the antibiotics and the better air quality my breathing will return to normal. I will post again before the weekend to let you know if they keep it open, but so far it is only closed while they are working from 8 am to about 3 pm. I feel like I have my own bomb shelter as big as the bridge turned out. I think it will be here long after everything else is gone.

On the weird news side, last week there was an unfortunate incident on the other side of the mountains near Marshlands where Leetonia Rd. connects to Elk Run Rd. It seems the Gaines Township road guys were working when a pipeline worker passed the grader doing what they said was 70 mph. The grader came to a complete stop for fear of a collision and the other worker, Randy, attempted to stop the vehicle and take the driver's information. This is were everything went wrong. The driver didn't want to give him the information so Randy punched him and the guy took off dragging Randy and leaving him in a broken, bloody pile on the road.

Shortly after mobile alerts blanketed the area with a description of the vehicle and its two occupants. They found the guy who hit Randy.  He claims he feared for his life, however this doesn't explain why he didn't stop after nearly killing Randy or call after he got a distance away. Randy had severe face damage and several broken bones. He was air-lifted out, but from what I understand is now at home recovering. I am not sure how this will play out in court. The hit and run person has no excuses, but not sure Randy will come off totally clean for punching him. This just shows you that using force to get justice can get you into trouble. Never a dull moment even in the middle of the woods.  Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Life Flight comes to Leetonia

Lifeflight

Landing

 It started out like any other Labor day weekend full of fun at the Bonitz camp. Abby Creamer jumped on her dad's 4-wheeler and in less than 10 seconds changed everything.

According to her mom LeAnn Creamer, " She got on my husbands atv and in 10 seconds she hit a weird bump and fell off. She is so lucky. She is okay. They are keeping her at geisinger till Wednesday for observation. She has bruised lungs a small laceration on her liver, a broken pinky that needs surgery and a concussion. Morris Fire dept were so awesome. They landed the helicopter right in the yard. It was so scary."

Morris Fireman Packing Abby for flight

Loading Abby in Helicopter

 When you get hurt up here you aren't 10 minutes from a hospital or help. It will be a minimum of an hour to see any emergency help. It is then another hour to a local hospital or if they call Life Flight about thirty minutes to get them and another 30 to fly you to Geisinger. I can tell you from personal experience, you want to be at a Trauma 1 center like Geisinger if you are hurt bad.

According to Bob Paul who took all these nice pictures and contacted me, Abby was knocked out by her accident. It looks like from the list of her injuries was indeed lucky not to have a more serious head injury.

From personal experience I can tell you, flying in the helicopter as a patient is a bit wierd. They put you in the belly of the beast with just enough room for you. Your head comes up between a nurse's legs. Stuff is within about 18" of the top of you and there is a small but not enjoyable window to your side. You really have no idea of what is happening or where you are going. In my case drugs they gave me helped a lot with that issue. No one else can come with you. So you take off leaving them about a 2 hour drive behind you.

When you land at Geisinger you are wheeled in and looked at by everyone in the hospital(or at least it feels that way).  They poke and prod at you and put you through machines. You feel very alone until your family arrives. I thought a lot about how scared Abby must have felt being alone in the ER until her family came.

Then the family worried sick, imagining the worst, drives the longest drive of their life. That two hours to Geisinger seems like eight.

Flying away to Geisinger

After it is over and a few days have passed. You realize how quickly life can change and if you and your loved one made it through the accident, how lucky you are. You never see a Life Flight helicopter again the same way. And you deeply appreciate all the care and concern conveyed to you by the medical people.

Leetonia is a wonderful place to live, but now and then it reminds us all just how isolated and dangerous it can be. Even with all this the last picture says it all.

A bear showed up during all the action. With all the firefighters, ambulance, helicopters and people, she just strode up to see what was happening. Maybe she went back to her cubs and told them,

Local Bear making sure rescue goes well

"Those humans have the strangest parties. You better stay away, cause a big bird came down and hauled one of them off into the sky."

Another day in Leetonia. Mountain girl, Paula, logging off.

Visitors to Leetonia

The picture to the left is of Charles John Schwab 1887-1919 born in Leetonia, Pennsylvania. His grandson named after him contacted me through reading the blog and came to Leetonia to see where his grandfather was born and died.

Charles Schwab worked for the lumber yard and loaded the trains with logs. As he was tightening a chain on logs it broke throwing him under the wheels of the train. The train severed his left leg close to his hip and severely crushed his hip. He was being hauled to Williamsport for care but died by the time they reached Cedar Run. Charles John Schwab was latter buried in the Wellsboro cemetery. Just the day before in Leetonia, Jacob Matthews a brakeman for the railroad also had a serious accident crushing his foot. He did however survive his accident. It is a reminder of how perilous working in the logging and railroad business was and still is.

I took the grandson, John, and his wife around Leetonia showing them some of what is left and pointing out where things used to be. Leetonia is a far cry from what it looked like in the days of John's grandfather. The whistle of the train has long stopped, the sound of the lumber mill silent and the smell of tanning fluid gone. But there is something about Leetonia that still stirs the imagination of things past. Sometimes it is so real you think you can hear the whistle and feel the joy and pain of the people who scraped out a living in Leetonia. One of our last stops was at the graveyard. Flags decorating the soldiers graves and a sober reminder that life didn't always make it past childhood as you look at the long line of infant graves up the side of the mountain. It is a bit of a hike up the steep slope of the cemetery and I was asked why didn't they bury people where it was flat? My only answer is flat is a premium space around here and it was generally used for building and work. I guess eternal rest was best in another space. It was also close to the school/church building that no longer exists.

Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Another way to get hurt!

I don't know why I am able to come up with so many ways to get a few days off...but this is a douse.
I have a brush cutter that looks like a saw blade on the end of a weed whacker. The blade has a guard behind it and I thought that would keep things from flying back at me.
I will admit I should have been wearing steel toe shoes, but I am not sure that would have stopped this wire or maybe it would have deflected it into some other part of my body.
I was trimming Sumac on the side of a hill near the neighbor's camp. When I heard a snap and felt what I thought was a rock hitting my left foot hard. It was like someone had taken a sledge to my foot. I turned the trimmer off and got down on my knees banging the ground with my fist. I tried to put a little weight on my foot and thought for sure it was broken. I scooted down the hill through the cut brush and when I got to stand up, I was shocked to see about 10 inches of wire coming out of the side of my foot. Every time the wire moved it gave me a nice hint we were heading to the ER. I hopped to the truck and drove the 1/4 mile home, hopped in and informed Lee of the new afternoon plans. She got the dogs put up and helped me to the car, then said, "Are you sure we can't pull it out ourselves."
"I don't know?" I said, "Put a little pressure on it and I will tell you."
She came over and unlaced my shoe and pulled the tongue back. You could see the wire was definitely in my foot. Lee grabbed a hold of it and I almost immediately said, "STOP! That thing is in there. I don't know if it is buried in my bone. I think we should get an x-ray before anyone pulls on it.
So we went on the one hour trip to the ER in Wellsboro. Every time that wire moved a little a wave of pain would go through me. I tried to think of anything else, but it was difficult. Wellsboro Soldiers and Sailors hospital is small and the good thing about small is you don't have to wait long. It was less than a half hour from the time I hopped in until they had an x-ray.
The nurse didn't say much except," Its in there pretty good. "
The last picture shows exactly the path through my foot the wire took. It came in on the top of my foot just below my little toe crossed the top, and I believe hit one of the long foot bones and went down between them an out the bottom.
Well, when the doctor came back, he didn't think it had gone all the way through. He told me he couldn't give me a local unless he got the shoe cut off and cutting the shoe off was going to hurt. I said, "Just pull it out."
As he started to pull one inch out, I was shocked to see more and more coming out. All together about two inches of wire was in my foot. He briefly looked at the bottom of my foot and proclaimed it hadn't gone through. But Lee said, "It had to go through there is blood on the bottom of the sock and the bottom of the shoe." Sure enough when he looked again there was a small hole that had stopped bleeding. "Well, I guess it did go through," he said in a tone that made us think he didn't like to be corrected.
He squeezed the wound and injected it with a local more that hurt worse than pulling it out. Of course I got the another tetanus shot, a antibiotic shot, some pain pills, and wrapped up. Lee said, I seemed a bit happier on the way home and talked a lot. We had to return a couple days later for another kind of antibiotic to stop the flaring up. However, today it is looking good and I think in a couple days, I will be able to get my shoe back on. I am sure the bruising I took will last a bit longer. Looking at that wire and how far it went into my foot, I am thankful it didn't hit some other part of my body. Mountain girl, Paula, logging, and limping off.

Leetonia at Christmas time

It was a rainy/icy day for Christmas. Lee is gone so it was just me and the dogs. We celebrated Christmas early so I worked on Christmas day to make it seem more like any other day. The ice outside was bad enough you did't feel like doing much outside anyway.
The day after Christmas I crept out the slippery roads to get some supplies. On the way back Leetonia Road was jammed with tow trucks. Not small ones..the big ones they use for semis. It seems the Gaines road plowing truck thought he could get by without chains and did a little flip off the road he rolled down about 15'. I did a little flashback to my accident and was glad I didn't
take a big dump truck down the cliff.
I turned around and circled over the mountain going up Elk Run to Schumacher. I came out by the Elk Township building and Lee Stover stopped me to say the Elk Township truck was laid up. They were sending the West Branch truck to cinder the ice. He told me the Gaines truck did a "Paula" down the road. Being a good sport I laughed, but now I think my name is becoming synonymous with flipping off the road. I had hoped for a better legacy.
My daughter and kids are coming up the second week in January and my daughter send me this picture of the youngest, Ella. She looks quite ready to be a mountain girl. I don't know if you can tell by the smile but she has enough energy to move the mountain.
The first picture shows the weather today. We got a couple inches of snow last night to cover our ice so it looks a little nicer but I doubt if it is any easier to walk yet. Well the fire is stoked up and warm. I have a trip into town for one of the dogs and will pick up some more cereal. Hope you all had a great Leetonia Christmas. I know I did. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

A year ago today!

It is hard to believe it has been a year since my accident. We drove to the site today, or should I say Lee drove, I didn't want to tempt fate. The first picture shows the spot I landed in 53' almost straight down from the road.
I am pointing down to the location not wishing a repeat in this lifetime. I feel fortunate to have survived this and it reminds me to pay attention. When you travel these roads everyday you get complacent about their danger. They are constantly changing downed trees, rocks, washouts, changes in vegetation. It was good
weather and the lack of concentration on a road traveled often. I looked away at the wrong time and my tire found a narrow, break away spot. The car was quick to remind me, I am not in control as I was tossed over and over four times landing in the creek and breaking my back in multiple places.
I climbed out in a rush of adrenaline through a broken window, slowing working my way up the nearly vertical hill. Cell phones are of no use and my car could not be seen from the road. Lee drove right past it until told where it was returning to the cabin. It may
have been best she didn't see it before she saw me.
My kids sent me this monkey after I got home from the hospital. It visited the site and attempted to climb one of the slippery rocks. But monkeys like trees better than rocks. It's helmet and parachute did protect it from falling.
It has taken me a year to feel like I am beginning to recover, emotionally and psychically. So many people sent me support in words, deeds, and money. I don't think I would have made it through without their loving support. I can never think there aren't great people in this world whenever I remember that day!
The roads haven't changed, but I will never be the same living through that event. Thanks to you all.
Mountain girl, Paula, logging off, and staying out of the ditches.

Snow continues

Huge flakes were falling this morning as I wondered how much snow we would be getting today. It has snowed everyday for three days now and the snowplow guy is starting to get tired of it. Unfortunately, it is only January and we have some of our bigger snows in February and March.
You can see from the pictures the snow between the house and the garage has piled up to about four feet in some places. This makes for a steep climb as you come out of the porch to get to the burn barrel and compost pit. When the snow slides off the roof it is going to be even higher.

I am not sure if this is a record amount of snow, but the snow isn't melting much between snows with the cold temperatures so it is piling up more and more. I am glad the road is being plowed now. It is nice knowing we can get out in a car and it gives me and the dogs a place to walk that isn't so deeply covered in snow.
Last weekend turned out to be a rough one for snowmobilers staying at a cabin next to us. One of them ran his snowmobile over the edge down about a hundred feet in the dark. He thinks he hit a few trees on the way down. He said he hit a patch of ice and before he knew it he was down. His buddies didn't see him go off and went past him once until he was able to climb to the top of the hill on to the road. The next day they came here to tell me they had tried to go down the road(unplowed) toward Cedar Run and now had their truck stuck. We called a tow truck for them and I noticed the guy who went over the mountain looked pretty sore. I am sure he felt it worse once he got home. I don't know how much the tow was but I am sure it wasn't cheap.
It is possible to drive on the unplowed roads, but you must be very careful to stay on the part the snowmobiles pack down which is usually only a car width wide. If you get off of this you imediately sink and find out just how deep the snow really is. I tempted fate once this year and have no plans of doing it again so I am just not driving on anything risky. If you want to come up stick to the plowed roads or snowmobile on the unplowed roads. Looks like more snow in the forecast and I will keep you updated. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out and digging out.

Mountain Girl takes a tumble

Well friends I have had a major adjustment to my life. I suffered a major car accident Sunday June 29th. My car fell off a 100' cliff and landed in the creek. I was in a spot unable to get cell reception and invisible from the back road I traveled. I knew I had hurt my back, but also realized unless I left the vehicle I may never be found. I was able to get my seat pried down and climbed out the back window. As my left hand touched the ground I realized I had broken the shoulder and had no strength. I had to lower myself on one arm down to the creek bed."Thank God for all the pushups!" At this moment a truck passed by I yelled and waved, but they were unable to see me. Now I faced a climb up the side of the mountain. Every step set excruciating pain up my back. The bank was about a 50 degree angle. I got on my hands and knees and looked for anything to grab with my right hand since this was all I had to pull myself up with. I just prayed every root would hold and when I got to the last 10 feet, I didn't slid back down.
We don't get much traffic on our road, but since it was a Sunday and many people were leaving their camps someone came shortly and I was able to connect to the assistance I needed. Here is the first picture of me trussed up before my air flight.
Two of my vertebra are broken one in 4 places the other in one. I also broke my left shoulder blade. I am just asking for all of your prayers making it through rehab and the financial stress will be my biggest challenge.
I will try to keep you all updated in the blog. I am having a hard time looking at anything for any length of time because of nausea.
Mountain girl, Paula, still loving Leetonia and logging out!

Thanksgiving in Leetonia

Thanksgiving is all about spending time with family and we were blessed with having my brother, Rob, come up to spend the holiday with us. There he is standing in front of the pond. Of course the next most important thing food, which we had a lot of including the pumpkin pie.

Lee and I heard a emergency siren on the other side of the mountain this morning, but no word as to what that was about. However, we did hear of an accident at Cedar Run sometime last night. The fog was really bad and if you don't know the roads and drink you can end up upside down and the bottom of a hill. That is exactly what


happened to four people on Beulahland Road, just about a half mile up from town at the first sharp turn. The road turned and they didn't. They spent the night up there with their empty beer cans and had to be hoisted out this morning.

Please don't drive after you drink up here these roads are hard enough to drive sober. Fortunately, no fatalities. Well, I hear my brother snoring after dinner so it must have been good. You all have a great Thanksgiving.

Mountain Girl, Paula, Logging out.