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Last Sunday, I went, by myself, to the jetty at Barnegat Lighthouse State Park in New Jersey to photograph the
Harlequins and other sea birds. Unfortunately, I slipped and ended up inside the jetty, upside down and trapped
between two fifteen foot, granite boulders. My feet were straight above me and I could not move. I tried for fifteen
minutes and finally had to give up. It took me another ten minutes to reach the cell phone in my back left hip pocket.
When I opened it, it said “No Service!” I won’t tell you what I said. Still, I hit 9-1-1, speaker and raised my left arm
as high as I could (my right arm was pinned beneath me!) Thank God, the 9-1-1 service came on and good old Ronnie
was able to get the Coast Guard and Long Beach Island Fire Department to come after me. It took them over an hour
to find me and I cannot describe how terrifying the wait was. Here was this foolish old man trapped inside a jetty,
no one around, upside down and the tide coming in!
In any event, all’s well that ends well and when I heard Vince’s voice and saw his yellow-helmeted face smiling at me…
oh well, you know how I felt. It took six of them to carefully lift me out of my predicament and get me to the
ambulance headed to Southern Ocean County Hospital. Now I am back home with a bunch of stitches in my head,
a bump on the side of it the size of an orange; two black eyes; a broken wrist; a sore shoulder and a greatly
damaged dignity. I will be ever grateful to 9-1-1, Nextel-Sprint, all the Emergency volunteers who came to help me,
and, of course, Dr. John Sullivan and the folks at Southern Ocean County Hospital who took such good care of me.
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