Now what?

There is a huge range of emotions and responses that a family goes through when an accident like what happened to Rick, occurs.  Once Rick was stabilized and in the Antigo ambulance waiting for the helicopter to arrive, I looked at Mary and asked, "What about Brian?"

Ricks and Mary's son Brian and his fiancee Steph and gone up to her grandfather's cottage in Mercer for the weekend. She looked at me and calmly said, "We''ll call him when we know more, I want to be able to tell him his dad is ok."

Brian lives at home with Rick and Mary and he and his dad are extremely close.  They play softball together, fantasy football, deer hunt and ATV.

In Mercer where the cottage is, it back in the woods and the telephone reception isn't good if you can get it all. So after numerous attempts to call and text either Brian or Steph failed, Mary remembered that her sister Trish, knew the neighbors up there and she called and was given the phone number at the cottage.

You can imagine that when Brian was told that his Auntie Jane was on the phone for him, he knew the news wouldn't be good.  He's thankful that his aunt could be the one to tell him about his dad and calm him down before he and Steph made the 103 mile drive to Wausau. He's also thankful that he had Steph by his side to drive him while he experienced a roller coaster ride of emotions before he was greeted by his mom, sister and brother-in-law at the hospital.