That old Dodge a trooper in storm rescue mission

Dec 12, 2008

With the onset of each winter, I'm reminded of the worst drive I ever made in a raging storm.

January, 1984. My younger sister Gillian announced she was going skiing with her boyfriend. We weren't allowed to do such dangerous things. My sister went anyway, deciding little could go wrong.

When the phone rang, a winter storm had begun raging outside that paled in comparison to the one inside. Gilly was lying in a Barrie hospital with a leg badly broken on her first ski run; the surgeon was unable to get to the hospital to set it that night.

We made some calls and knew we had to get her home. More calls to the hospital confirmed they couldn't transfer her.

My father started brushing the snow from his pride and joy – his 1976 Dodge Ramcharger. It was the manliest thing he'd ever owned, and while it wasn't particularly plush – not even carpeted – it was large. It was also a little light in the rear, and Dad had countered the effect with concrete blocks. Country boys do things their own way. We loaded the back full of bedding, and hit the road.

That is, Mom and I hit the road, with me driving. My mother convinced him it made more sense; his health wasn't great and yelling at my sister would take a lot of his energy. I'd had my licence less than three years, and looking back it seems crazy. But my parents had allowed me to drive in all conditions, and Dad had given me his version of a winter driving course – skidding around an abandoned mall parking lot one Sunday in 10 centimetres of snow.

The drive up took more than two hours – it usually takes one. The roads were a nightmare, and blowing snow isn't good for Ramchargers at the best of times. There was a single lane open on Hwy. 400. Not wanting to join the dozens of cars in the ditches, I kept the speed down but steady. The truck had a tendency to skitter from the rear – hence the blocks. The defroster wailed uselessly, so my mother kept wiping down the windshield. My dad's insistence on snow tires and a full tank of gas in the winter had never made more sense.

Mom and I pulled up to the Barrie hospital in the wind and snow. My sister was in agony; she'd been brought to the hospital in the back of a Lada – owned by that soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend – and things had gone downhill from there.

The hospital staff doped Gilly up with pain killers, and gingerly placed her in the back of the truck, her leg propped up on a concrete block.

The drive back was harrowing – it's difficult to hear someone you love in extraordinary pain. The storm never let up, and in the days before cellphones, my father was left to pace and wonder and worry. We trailed three giant snow plows back, and I realize in retrospect, this was probably the reason we got home safe.

More than two hours later, Gilly was being plucked from the back of the truck by some very puzzled medical personnel at our hospital. A surgeon was standing by.

One metal plate and seven screws later, Gilly began her recuperation. We were told if they hadn't operated that night her broken leg would have ended up two inches shorter.

That truck wasn't pretty, it wasn't efficient, and it was positively petulant in rainy weather.

But that night, it was a star.

Lorraine Sommerfeld appears Saturday in Wheels and Mondays in Living.

www.lorraineonline.ca

Toronto Star