Bloody Hands

Have you ever had someone's blood on your hands?  I don't mean figuratively.  But literally? Take a look at the foto - that is someone else's blood drying on my hands!

Sunday afternoon, I was out for a run, had my headphones on and just cruising. When I'm jogging, I kinda tune out everything else except for my running music (Redman, Tomlin, Mainstay, Jeremy Camp, etc) - I don't notice nor acknowledge much unless it is to nod hello to another runner, or unless there is an emergency.

Well, that afternoon, there was such an 'emergency'.  As I was just getting into the run, I notice a car slam on its brakes right in the middle of the street.  The driver then jumps out shouting and waving his arms.  I couldn't quite make out what he was yelling about - my my earphones were still in.  At this point, I started thinking - ok, is this a drive-by shooting?!?!  Is there gonna be another car cruising by with a guy hanging out the passenger window with an Uzi - I seriously was ready to dive behind parked cars! (Ok, maybe one too many James Bond movie).

But there were no other cars on the street that lazy Sunday afternoon and the driver was gesturing wildly at the back seat of his car and still yelling.  My next thought - ok, his wife is having a baby!  And he wants me to deliver his baby!?!  (I seriously was thinking of Will Smith in Men In Black, when he had to deliver the alien baby - ok, I really gotta cut back on the movies!).   Anyways, the driver was still yelling frantically - at another person on the sidewalk ahead of me.  This person looks at the man, looks at the car in the middle of the street and keeps on walking!  So now, I am just about abreast of the car and the driver turns to me and yells - 'hey mate, help me mate, help me!'  He had a weird wild look on his face, so being the kind of guy I am (weird and wild), I hurried out into the street and up to the car, taking my earphones out.  That was when I heard and saw that there were two dogs in the back seat killing each other - literally!  Somehow, they both had each other by the neck under the chin, right where the jugular would be - their jaws were locked and they were growling.

And then I noticed all the blood - not from the dogs, but from the driver - a young man in his early twentys.  He obviously was driving along when the dogs began to fight in the back seat and he most likely reached back and tried to stop them and got a nasty bite on his forearm, and it was bleeding pretty badly, dripping blood all over the car, the dogs' heads and the street as he's waving the bloody arm about.  But he was still yelling frantically for me to help him break up the dogfight.  So he starts kneeling on one of the dogs, pounding it with his fist (not hard, but enough to try to get it to loosen its jaw).  All the while yelling at me to grab the other dog and pull him out of the car.  Yeah, right - with him bleeding from that nasty bite!

But I wasn't thinking - I was just riding high on adrenaline and jumped into the back seat and grabbed the other dog by the back of the neck with both hands and yanked as hard as I could, putting all my weight behind it.  But the dog wasn't letting go.  So we tried it a second time - the young man pounding on his dog and and yelling at it and me yanking with all my might (which isn't much normally, but hey, adrenaline does somethin' to ya) and yelling at my dog to stop!  And lo and behold, the dogs separated!  I yanked my dog out of the car, still holding him by the scruff of the neck, still pumped on adrenaline.  That was when I noticed what kind of dog it was - some kind of boxer mix, not pure-bred, but it had the muscular shoulders and jaws.  And that was when my knees went a little weak and it hit me that I could've been bitten pretty badly if this dog decided to turn on me, there in the back seat of some guy's car.

In any case, the guy yells at me, 'thanks mate'.  I yell back at him (remember - adrenaline - normal volume wasn't an option) - 'hey man, you gotta get that bleeding arm taken care of!  I'll drive you to the emergency room!'  He yells back 'no, thanks mate, I'll take care of it!'  I yell again 'let's go to the hospital!'  He yells 'thanks mate' then picks up the boxer, literally chucks the dog into the trunk/boot, slams it close, slams the back doors close, gets behind the wheel and screeches off down the street at breakneck speed.  And leaves me standing in the middle of the street, with my earphones laying on the ground and with his blood drying on my hands.  Suffice it to say - that was NOT my normal Sunday afternoon run.