Alright, so you look at the calendar, the blooming flora and your own reflection in the mirror, when it hits you. That old adage about ‘no time like the present’ definitely rings true when it comes to getting in shape for the beach season. Those gym rat colleagues do their part to ‘encourage’ you; with daily reminders to ‘get ya scrawny ass tuh da gym’ - and constantly dropping hints alluding to ‘free guest memberships’. When you couple their taunts to the fact your local gym was shuttered last October, their tag-along offers start sounding pretty good. It’s almost guaranteed to become a beneficial arrangement. The ribbing will wane and you’ll start looking and feeling healthier. The icing on the cake (froth on the juice smoothie?): You no longer need to accompany your lover to yoga class. You have a legitimate alibi now, you’re working out with your comrades. Finally! Emancipation from older ladies blowing Geritol-laced farts 3 feet in front of your face just as you get into a dog-facing down position.
Things go well at Bally Total Fitness in Co-op City. You’re sore, but you’re enjoying yourself for the most part. It’s not your goal to become a beef head, so accompanying the guys Monday, Wednesday and Friday is just enough. You’re learning new work-out techniques - and developing a more positive opinion of the people that are in the adjacent trenches during business hours. By the end of the weekend, the decision is made. The new routine is going so well that it’s time to take the plunge. You’ll make a financial commitment at put all that yoga crap behind you.
Without warning, cluelessness rears its ugly head.
From the weight room comes the ear-piercing screams of terror. A personal trainer, covered in blood, comes running into the locker room. You’ve never seen an African-American so ashen in your entire life - convinced all that blood ran out of his face. You inquire as to “what happened” and get nothing but a frantic, garbled, panic-laced recap.
Outside the lockers, over by the sit-up benches, sits the cause of the commotion. A 24-year old male is splayed out, spewing blood from what appears to be the result of having the top quarter of his head ripped off. Not open…off. The ever thickening layers of gauze being wrapped around the massive wound turn deep crimson. There’s no mistaking it - even as a blurred hand skims past the vantage point at about the rate of ten times per second. This poor guy you were just talking to a few minutes ago is royally fubar
So what happened?
Every witness capable of speech completely concurred. Cluelessness. The unsuspecting victim, busily doing crunches and leg lifts, ended up with the flesh from his head ripped down to the skull without a micro-second of warning. Another patron had opted to ‘shim up’ the light end of an adjacent leg machine - and a quarter ton contraption snapped front over back onto a now mangled cranium at about the force of 5 gs.
No, the equipment wasn’t bolted down, and it’s a damn shame it wasn’t. Though it’s a near guarantee four chrome-plated concrete fasteners could have prevented such a tragedy - sometimes, there’s just no protection from cluelessness.
(The victim’s family, friends, paramedics, ambulance driver, ER staff & doctors are the only one’s who know what his chances of survival are).
