Around about 1992, I was traveling in a 1980 Chevrolet X 11 Citation when my brother and I hit a tree broadside at aprox. 100 MPH. Actually we were airborne and hit the tree on the passenger side door about 12 feet up in the tree.
It slid down off the tree and was lying on the ground all crumpled up when the firemen arrived.
I was knocked unconscious for about 1 hour. When I came to, there was a fireman shining a light in my face telling me that I had a couple of broken ribs and a collasped lung.
They took me to the local band aid station where I laid in the Intensive Care Ward for 4 days.
My lung hadn't gotten better, but they moved me the 5th day when they needed my bed.
The doctors told me that if I wanted to get better that I had to cough or else the lung wasn't going to inflate and they were going to have to operate. That night as I laid in bed, not knowing what tomorrow was going to bring.. I was scheduled for surgery for 7 AM that next morning. Either they were going to repair the lung or else remove it since it was damaged severly.
I came from a poor family that never had cable TV. I watched all the Super70s shows when I was a kid, but I forgot just how corny they were.
Green Acres came on what is now called Nickelodeon.. It was probably 10 PM.
The name of the show was GET HANEY... It was all about how Mr. Haney was trying to get Oliver to pay for a statue he delivered to his farm. A bath tub with a outboard motor on it.. When Oliver refused to pay for the statue and asked to see the bill, he told Mr. Heney that it was not his signature. He called old Zsa Zsa Gabor out to see if she ordered the statue. Lisa said that she didn't but maybe the pig did. Oliver said how could a pig sign his name. Lisa said that she bought him a ball point pen for Christmas.
Well if it ended right there it would have been funny enough. But Eddie Arnold -- Oliver -- went down to Sam Druckers store and raised a fuss. Finally the people said that they had enough, that Mr. Heney had taken advantage of all of them at one time or another.. One guy said - don't feel bad, I bougth a washing machine off the guy, It was a bath tub with a out board motor on it. The other guy said that's nothing, I bought a sports car off him. Again it was a bath tub with a outboard motor on it.
I started laughing - which was the first sound that I had made in 5 days.
The nurses came running in to see if I was dying - or what the commotion was in my room. I told them that " you got to see these Yankee's, there pretty funny!"
It was a miracle, they put the stesthescope to my chest and my lung had inflated and they took me off the list for surgery the next morning. I actually went home after 7 days in the hospital and returned to work 9 months later. All because of Green Acres.