Whoa!Longtime lurker but infrequent poster. But I think I need to tell my story. For the children.
Sunny weekday morning mid-February in 2012. Parked my car at Donovan Park in West Vail, wrestled my way into my stupid Dobermann plugs, hoisted my skis and walked to the bus stop on Matterhorn Drive. There, I promptly fell over dead when my heart stopped beating. A young woman (my angel) waiting at the stop with her sons started chest compressions until an ambulance arrived nearly five minutes later. Apparently, EMTs got a heartbeat after a second shock. Stabilized at Vail Hospital, then choppered unconscious to a Denver Hospital ($31,000), where I spent seven days on a ventilator and in a hypothermic coma because docs feared brain damage. Three months later, I had a defibrillator implanted in my chest because they suspected a momentary loss of electrical signals to the heart. No damage to the heart, and I became one of less than 5 percent who survive a sudden cardiac arrest and come out of it not drooling.
Pretty bad day, huh? Nah. It got worse. Fast forward five years. Stopped in Front Range city for a minor traffic violation. While waiting for ticket to be written, two other squad cars come roaring up. It was a felony fugitive party! I was taken out of the car, handcuffed, arrested and taken to jail for a felony drug warrant out of Vail. Turns out an emergency room "Karen" had discovered a small bag of shrooms in my ski pants and called The Man. (I was meeting old University of Montana college buddies that ill-fated day for our annual slopeside homage to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.)
Vail never bothered to let me know I was wanted by Johnny Law. Upshot: Six years later, a nice young judge in Eagle took pity on me and dismissed the charge after I was a good geezer for nine months. I don't think federal sentencing guidelines anticipated what to do with a retired professional, responsible taxpayer and obvious knothead.
Oh, yea, I missed the rest of the 2012 season and have had to miss subsequent annual Kesey celebrations out of deference to my two loving daughters.
So, OK, judge me. I'm good with that. But did I win the post?
Cardiac arrrest and shroom arrest!