We were finishing the fieldwork on a boundary survey on Friday when the realtor called to check on our progress. Told her we would be done in less than an hour and to notify both buyer and seller if they wanted to look at things before we left the site. She called back a few minutes later to say the buyer would be there shortly and the seller said she would be there as soon as possible, but, she was at the hospital. As we were only a mile and a half from the hospital my initial thought was this meant she would be there in just a few minutes. Wrong! She was there because her son had been admitted with what the doctors thought might be a stroke. She is in her early 70's so assume he is around 50. She did not make it during the hour we were still there. Hope for her sake that the son is OK. She's been a widow for about 15 years already, since the day her mechanic husband had a car slip off the supports and crush him. First time I've ever had a client not be able to show up due to an unexpected major medical emergency for a family member.
weird- had something similar about a month ago. driving down the road, get a call from a panicked GC who needed something laid out stat. "his" surveyor had to split because his son was in the ER with an overdose. left all his gear on site. we happened to be two blocks away. went by, got the whole story, turned off the other guy's equipment for him, then ended up telling the GC he'd be better off taking a deep breath and waiting a couple days, as i wasn't gonna be able to lay out his site based off a partial copy of plans with a single benchmark that wasn't even where it was indicated to be.
not sure how any of that ended.
I was on a big ranch being shown around by the ranch foreman. Great guy, funny and knew every inch of this place. Just one of those men that you became friends with in 10 minutes. He had been on this ranch his whole life of 60 years.
About 2 hours into the tour, he said he was not feeling well and asked if we could continue tomorrow.
No problem,
Next day we show up and owner informs us that ranch foreman had a major heart attack that night and was no longer with us.
I was floored, and it took me a few days to shake it off.
Randy
About 20 years ago I went out to a farm early one afternoon to meet a man and his daughter so they could show me where they wanted to cut a couple of acres off for the daughter. When I got there, there were several volunteer fire department vehicles, a sheriffs department cruiser, an ambulance and many cars lined up along both sides of the road leading up to the farm house where they lived. My first thought was that they were having a volunteer fire department fish fry or something. I saw a friend and asked what was going on. He told me that the man I was supposed to meet was laying dead in the carport from an apparent electrocution and they were all gathered up waiting on the Justice of the Peace to come and pronounce him dead. I said I was supposed to meet them both, but to give the daughter my sympathies and to tell her I would call her in a week or so. My friend said to tell her myself because she was coming our way. When she got there, I told her how sorry I was for her loss and that she could call me in a week or so to reschedule if she still wanted to. She said there was no reason to put it off, since I was there, we might as well go over and she would show me where to cut the land off. No matter how much I tried not to do it at that time, she insisted that we do it right them. So in sight of all the folks that were gathered, we rode off to rough stake her two acres. I sure felt awkward doing it, but since that time, I have gotten to know the family very well and have come to understand that they love each other very much, but they are just tough old farmers.
Many years ago, was brushing line for a gas pipeline in the middle of nowhere. When we saw a State Trooper walking up our line to find us. Very sad day, when we learned he was there for my instrument man. His wife had been killed in a car crash. He went with the trooper and I being the other half of the two man crew, just sat in the woods for hours before I could drive the hour back home. 🙁
Last Fall SWMBO took a call that a female person wanted to locate a front corner in a commercial area of Elora.
No hurry was the timing mode, thus it was put on "The List".
Called (a few weeks later) when we knew we could come.
Got a weird answering machine reply.
Found out a few days later she had committed suicide.
'The human mind is an adventure'
