Screams exploded from the phone in my hand. "Where's the saw? I need the saw!" The distressed woman was inconsolable.
Our friend Bob Blankenship, former Faulkner County Sheriff, confessed to having heard such anguished pleas before, but only from would-be jailbreakers. He was joking, but these screams were real.
The caller was my wife. She was entangled in a life-and-death struggle, and a saw was the key of extrication. The story began to come together… sob by sob.
Our son, then about 10 months old, was learning to walk by grasping a chair and toddling around it. Mom's watchful eye saw no danger.
But suddenly–how she didn't know–the baby was dangling between heaven and earth on the chair's backside, his head firmly wedged between two rungs. His feet inches from the floor, it was indeed life threatening. His screams excited hers.
She vainly twisted and turned the out-of-control baby, but the gap between the rungs was too narrow. Every attempt to pry him free only reaped more pain, more screams, and more emotion for both.
The chair was a prized gift from Great-aunt Louise, but it had to be sawed asunder–and quickly. So snatching up baby and chair in one lump sum, she toted all to the phone and called dad.
We hurriedly explored options. Perhaps the space between the rungs at the top of the chair was wider. It wasn't. I hung up and called a neighbor. No one home. More squeezing, pulling and screaming. Nothing worked.
With his tiny body supported in a horizontal position by mom, he relaxed a bit. And then the miracle happened as most miracles do: unexpectedly. He easily plunged his head deeper into the bind holding him and wriggled his body after it. Soon he safely flopped like a beached whale, exhausted on the seat of the chair. The answer was there all the time–and closer than we thought.
The genesis of the predicament fell into place. He had dragged himself up on the seat, not the back of the chair. Then instead of safely backing down the way he had come, his feet slipped between the two offending rungs. Gravity then jerked him through–except for his head.
Once screams filled the air, the most obvious remedy was the saw. But with a little time, patience and mom's soothing voice, a better solution unraveled.
I once cross-threaded a spark plug into an aluminum engine because I reached for the wrench too quickly. Forcing that obvious solution was destructive–and often is.
Even today we face a circumstance of monumental proportions that has compelled cries for help. Charging down the shortest escape route has let us smell disaster. But I expect that the real answer is close at hand–if we're not too impatient to see it. The shortest path out of a predicament is not always the best.
Copyright 2002 James McAlister
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