Two Bits – 4 April 2014

One week I’m doing high kicks, the next I’m flat on my back.
On Saturday after golf I walked into my neighbour’s yard to pick up a set of keys that had been left there, without giving his three boerbul dogs a second thought. I’d been in there before, admittedly when the dogs were younger.
What was a big surprise was that they attacked me. One grabbed my calf and gave it an almighty wrench, almost pulling the whole muscle off my leg. The other came from behind and bit my upper thigh, slicing deep into the flesh. Next thing I knew I was lying flat on my back with three dogs snarling and trying to bite my upper body. The neighbour’s daughter and a visitor, hearing the commotion, rushed out and tried to stop the dogs, but they were no match for the big animals.
I kicked them away as best I could, but realised that if I lay there one second longer, they were going to go for my throat and I would surely die. They weren’t going to stop.
With the burst of adrenalin that makes people hurdle tall buildings, I jumped to my feet and in one leap, jumped on top of a car parked in the yard. There was blood and gore everywhere and the dogs were scrabbling at the car, still trying to get me. At that point the owner came out of the house and called the dogs off.
We occasionally read of people being injured or killed by big dogs. Like you, I’ve  wondered how that could happen, how a person could be brought down by dogs.
Well now I know it can happen very easily and very quickly.
They knocked me down and those powerful jaws sliced through my flesh like so much playdough. One moment all is fine, the very next you’re in deep trouble.
Anyhow, my neighbour bundled me into his car and rushed to Alberlito ER, where they had me sorted out in no time flat. To Dr Dion Steer and the operating team, the ward sisters and everybody else, thank you for looking after me. They were all first class. My wife happened to be away but she rang our friends Val and Sue, who came to hospital to hold my hand – thank you! For the record, I don’t blame my neighbour or the dogs for what happened. I was in their space.
The first time I was in a life-threatening situation was when, at the age of eight, 54 years ago, I suffered a punctured stomach in a bicycle accident. It was touch and go, I’m told, that I survived.
So when my brother in Pretoria heard of Saturday’s accident he sms’d me in a parody of our mother’s voice: “First you fall off your bike, now you’re attacked by dogs. No more playing in the road for you!” I had to laugh. You could just hear my mother giving me a stern lecture.
Why I started this column saying one moment I was doing high kicks, the next flat on my back, was that a couple of days earlier at Pilates, instructor Tash Barnard was demonstrating a movement and chose to do it perched on my back, as you can see in the picture. She and I are such showoffs! I tell you what, those years of Pilates gave me the strength and flexibility to get out from under those dogs and leap onto the car, no question, so thanks Tash!
My daughter suggests I rename this column Two Bites (and a Pike) – which is typical of the sympathy you can expect from family!
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The N2 Ballito interchange looks so unlike the elegant spaghetti junction we were promised all those years ago, that I wondered if the engineers had decided to take some short cuts and come up with a “make do” affair.
Not so, says Zandile Nene of the SA roads agency. It may look a bit odd now, but the final product will be as the original plans.
“There is no way that a design can change halfway through a project,” she said.
Mmmm, Ms Nene is young, ‘cos I have seen many projects change for inexplicable reasons. But we’ll take her word for it, for now.
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You are such a good friend that if we were on a sinking ship together and there was only one life jacket . . . I’d miss you heaps and think of you often.