Attack of the Killer Tomato Cage
My husband and I got called out one morning because an elderly lady couldn't be contacted by phone. When we arrived, we had to traverse the lady's alley which was crowded with trash, car parts and six-foot high weeds. When we finally got into the lady's backyard, I was surprised by what was before me.
The lady had a small garden in her backyard and she was lying on the ground. But here is the strange part -- she was folded up like a suitcase with her knees on either side of her chin, inside one of her tomato cages.
That's right, she had fallen backwards into her tomato cage bottom first and was stuck. She told us she didn't know how long she had been there but she did remember it had rained on her. We figured that she had been there all night since it rained at eleven pm on Saturday and it was now 10:00 am Sunday.
She explained to us that she had been watering her tomatoes using a five-gallon bucket. As she moved from plant to plant, she carried the bucket. At one point the water sloshing in the bucket put her off balance and she fell into the cage.
She was a small petite lady and she fit perfectly down into the cage. She was fine except for a bad case of sunburn on her feet. The only fatality of the incident was the tomato plant and, of course, the cage.
Caroline Peterson
EMT Atwood KS
