Dang near died

They say that a brave man dies just once, but a coward dies a thousand times. I must not be very brave because I’ve dang near died a whole bunch of times.

One of my first DND (Dang Near Died) experiences took place when I was about 9. This might seem like a tender age for such a thing, but I was a precocious child regarding these matters.

It was the middle of summertime, and I was invited over to our neighbors, Al and Lorraine, to play with Steve, a kid who stayed at their farm during the summer. Al and Lorraine didn’t have any kids, and I guess having a couple of rambunctious boys like Steve and me around was their way of reassuring themselves that being childless wasn’t such a bad thing.

My spirits soared as I pedaled my bike over to Al and Lorraine’s farm. It was a momentous day in my young life, for I was being allowed to sleep over for the very first time.

Due to my excitement, I arrived at their farm early and found no one home. It was a sweltering hot day, and I was quite thirsty after my arduous 2-mile bike ride.

It didn’t seem right to enter Al and Lorraine’s house when they were gone, so I did what I generally did at home when I was thirsty: I went to the pumpjack, slipped the cup off the downspout, and drank deeply of the cool, clear water.

However, the water that came from Al and Lorraine’s well tasted, well, different. There was something odd about it, sort of a metallic saltiness. Steve and Al and Lorraine soon arrived, and I gave the matter not another thought.

Steve and I had a wonderful time. We climbed trees and commiserated with each other about the annoyance of sisters. The day was capped off by a trip to town, where we attended a street carnival. I distinctly recall that the carnival included the consumption of popcorn and strawberry soda.

We got back to Al and Lorraine’s house exhausted and happy. Steve and I went to bed and were soon fast asleep.

Sometime during the night, a strange rumble woke me. I thought that a truck had thundered by, but then I felt it again. It was coming from me.

My abdomen abruptly tightened, and I was seized by a welling-up feeling. I ran down the stairs and arrived at the bathroom just in time.

I had never experienced anything so explosive. When it was finally over, I glanced into the toilet and gasped. I thought those were my innards — but was relieved when I recalled I’d had popcorn and strawberry soda.

This relief proved to be short-lived. Another tsunami soon washed over me, and I again found myself gripping the toilet. I ralphed so much that I thought that I could see baby food I ate as a toddler.

As soon as the second round of ralphing was over, I felt another urge and quickly took a seat. For several long minutes, between one thing and the other, I literally didn’t know which way to turn.

I felt strangely serene when the crisis finally subsided. This serenity came from the certainty that I was about to die. How else to explain this revolting behavior by my body?

Lorraine had heard my moans and came to check on me. Through tears, I detailed what was happening and that she should probably call the mortuary. Lorraine asked, “Did you drink from the pumpjack?”

When I replied that I had, she said, “You can’t drink that water. It’s full of Epsom salt.”

Aha, my assassin had a name. I didn’t know what Epsom salt was, but its moniker seemed to infer some sort of insidious poison that sneaks up on boys in the middle of the night and sweeps them off to their graves on tidal waves of emesis.

I was consigned to the couch, and a large kettle was placed on the floor beside me. I stared at the kettle in the dim light and thought: This is how it ends. Will the next blast of nausea propel my innards into the kettle, or will everything simply fade to black?

Everything simply faded to black. The next thing I knew, it was morning, and I was sitting at the kitchen table eating cornflakes with Steve and Al and Lorraine.

I later told Steve about my midnight misadventure, giving great emphasis to the fact that it was a traumatic DND experience.

Totally unimpressed, Steve looked at me and said, “You dope. You drank water from the pumpjack, didn’t you?”

Jerry Nelson is a recovering dairy farmer from Volga, South Dakota. He and his wife, Julie, have two sons and live on the farm where Jerry’s great-grandfather homesteaded over 110 years ago. Feel free to email him at jerry.n@dairystar.com.