The Mezzanine Saga
Updated: May 21, 2020
WARNING: Graphic photography follows
Act 1: The fall
Many of you would remember the saga when Sassy was building a Mezzanine at his factory in 2015. He fell whilst climbing down the scaffolding and landed on his back in the middle of the factory floor. The result was that he broke his back in four places, broke four ribs, punctured his lung, lacerated his elbow, fractured his scull and dented his pride a little further.
It was touch and go if he was going to recover and he spend a total of 4 days in ICU and then was moved to the High Dependency Ward. As always, Sassy found an inner strength to light the fire again.
Act 2: The Fall out.
About 3 months later, he was back at the factory working on his boat and started showing signs of a stroke. After being taken to one of his favourite hospitals, thanks to the great nursing staff the Dr's located a bleed on the pea sized brain or sub dural heamatoma. The bleed was so bad he had to have it drained which he needed like a hole in the head... The Surgery couldn't be done straight away as he was on blood thinners given his heart... The Dr's decided to wait 4 days for the blood thinners to be out of his system. Sassy's three son's (Craig, Todd and Neil) gathered around his bed to keep him company. Sassy was trying to talk, but couldn't put a sentence together after realising this was frustrating Sassy they decided the best thing to do was to leave him alone. Not long later, Sassy had a minor stroke and was put in for emergency surgery.
Act 3: Post Op purchase
After spending 8 weeks in rehabilitation, Sassy was eager to get back to life. He decided that the best way to do this was to purchase a new car! It was something that he had wanted for a while and what better time than now! That is what you do after you have had brain surgery - right? Not allowed to drive for 6 months is a perfect time. Sassy with he help of an un-named friend, took themselves off to Parramatta and came home with a Mercedes SLK250. Delivered the very next day was his brand new car... Unfortunately, the car sat in the garage for six months until the day that Sassy was allowed to drive.
But as you can see from the photo below, by gee he was happy that day!
Act 4: Electric Power
Those that know Sassy, know that asking him to sit down and take it easy for 6 hours is impossible... let alone 6 months. Now without a license and dependant on friends and family, Sassy needed independence. This time it came in the form of a little blue Scooter. Sassy researched the fastest and best scooter on the market... Then proceeded to find a way to "enhance" it to make it a little faster. As much as he didn't like the idea at the time as Electric scooters are only for cripples - Today he is known by all of the Mum's and kids at Glenhaven public school
There are a few more stories about the scooter, but we'll save them for a separate post.
Act 5: Sweeping Clean up
After making an amazing recovery he decided to work on the mezzanine again... He needed to install two winches in the roof of it to store his motorcycle trailer.
But this time he was being safe.... He took no chances!
Sassy had been banned by Wendy and the boys from going up more than one rung on a ladder after his previous fall 10 years earlier.
Sassy was wanting to tighten the bolts on a winch he had installed In the roof of the mezzanine. Rather than as one of this three son's for help, he came up with the idea of being safe and only staying on the bottom rung of the ladder. Enter a series of dumb ideas!!!
Dumb Idea 1: He started the forklift in the closed up factory.
Dumb Idea 2: He then proceeded to put a pallet on the forklift, then put a ladder on that that he could climb up.
Dumb Idea 3: Then he used the broom to push the lever to raise and lower the forklift.
He raised the platform and stood on the ladder tightening the bolts...
I walked in on the catastrophe waiting to happen and as all good Son’s should, I got my phone out to capture the moment as proof. I asked him why he didn’t ask for help right before starting the video... His response, “I didn’t want to bother you”