Six Faces - The Scorpion King
Our watchman Six Faces (a.ka. Arumugam) is a very conscientious and trust-worthy worker, one of the people we depend on to get things done. He also cleans cars every morning as a way to make more money. I wasn't sure about how good he was at car cleaning but decided to give him a try and was amazed by the quality of his work. Turns out he was willing to do it for free I was able to make sure I pay him for his extra effort in addition to the guard duties.
Last Friday night I get back home at a fairly decent hour(like 7.30 PM ...no I do not have a hectic social life) , have dinner, watch a movie till around midnight and go to bed. While watching the movie I noticed that it was raining pretty heavily outside but didn't think too much about it. I go to bed and early next morning while reading the paper I hear Arumugam come to the door with the milk packets and tell my mother that he had to go off duty for a bit last night. Why ? Turns out the rains had caused a BLACK SCORPION to run into his guard shed and sting him ! For those that do not know, a sting from a black scorpion is considered to be FATAL unless treated immediately. Brown is supposed to be pretty bad too but not fatal ( I have another story about my dad being stung by a tiny brown scorpion). What does Arumugam do ? Ask for help from us who are just a couple of feet away from his shed ? No. He ties up his foot with something to prevent the poison from spreading, hops (bad pun I realize but that's all you can do when you are stung) onto his bicycle and pedals all the way from Nungambakkam till Kilpauk (yes .. over the Chetpet bridge!). He manages to get a Doctor to look at him, get two antidote injections one on his foot and another somewhere on his torso, stays there under observation to make sure he doesn't kick the bucket and then, pedals back !
We were shocked that he did all that by himself. After making sure that he was okay, we let him have it for being stupid and not calling us. I or my Father could have taken him by car to the hospital but I guess he didn't want to trouble us.
Am very happy with Arumugams work for us but feel bad that he didn't want to ask for help.
Last Friday night I get back home at a fairly decent hour(like 7.30 PM ...no I do not have a hectic social life) , have dinner, watch a movie till around midnight and go to bed. While watching the movie I noticed that it was raining pretty heavily outside but didn't think too much about it. I go to bed and early next morning while reading the paper I hear Arumugam come to the door with the milk packets and tell my mother that he had to go off duty for a bit last night. Why ? Turns out the rains had caused a BLACK SCORPION to run into his guard shed and sting him ! For those that do not know, a sting from a black scorpion is considered to be FATAL unless treated immediately. Brown is supposed to be pretty bad too but not fatal ( I have another story about my dad being stung by a tiny brown scorpion). What does Arumugam do ? Ask for help from us who are just a couple of feet away from his shed ? No. He ties up his foot with something to prevent the poison from spreading, hops (bad pun I realize but that's all you can do when you are stung) onto his bicycle and pedals all the way from Nungambakkam till Kilpauk (yes .. over the Chetpet bridge!). He manages to get a Doctor to look at him, get two antidote injections one on his foot and another somewhere on his torso, stays there under observation to make sure he doesn't kick the bucket and then, pedals back !
We were shocked that he did all that by himself. After making sure that he was okay, we let him have it for being stupid and not calling us. I or my Father could have taken him by car to the hospital but I guess he didn't want to trouble us.
Am very happy with Arumugams work for us but feel bad that he didn't want to ask for help.
posted by Sushil at 5:34 am
1 Comments:
That is really too much. Is he Superman or what?
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