Whoever Has 'Man Falls into a Sinkhole Full of Rats' Just Won 2020 BINGO
Source - A Bronx man who plummeted 15 feet after a sinkhole opened underneath him had to deal with a swarm of scurrying rats as he waited for help, his brother told the Daily News.
Leonard Shoulders, 33, was waiting for a bus on Third Ave. near E. 183rd St. in Belmont Saturday afternoon when the concrete sidewalk suddenly cracked open and swallowed him.
“As he was falling, he scraped his face, broke his arm and broke his leg," his brother, Greg White, 22, told The News on Monday. “He couldn’t move, and the rats were crawling all over him. He didn’t scream, because he didn’t want the rats going into his mouth.”
Shoulders was stuck for about a half-hour until help arrived, his brother said. ...
"He’s in the hospital recovering,” his brother said.
One part of this I can do without - aside from all of it - is the part where Leonard Shoulders' brother says he's recovering. Because you don't recover from this. I don't want to hear his condition is improving and he's doing fine. Because you know who's doing fine? People who step on a sidewalk that doesn't collapse under their feet and they walk to wherever it is they were heading. Studies show that among the people who fall into underground holes and have rats threaten to crawl into their mouths for a half an hour, 0% are doing OK. I mean, in George Orwell's "1984," the government gets Winston Smith to break with the mere suggestion of putting a rat into a mask strapped to his face. He withstands all forms of torment without cracking, but just the idea of one of the little verminy buggers gnawing his nose off is enough to get him to [unneccessary SPOILER of this 72 year old novel] betray the only person who brought happiness to his life. My man Leonard here lived it. Times God only knows how many critters.
I've always considered myself pretty much of a pragmatist. But also someone who tries to focus on the positives. I think that any day where you go to bed and nothing bad happened is a good day. And any morning where you slept through the night without getting a call about some tragic event in your life is a reason to be cheerful. But if this year has done anything, it's lowered even that low standard by an order of magnitude. Now all I'm hoping for is that I can get through today without finding myself 15 feet under a sidewalk with dozens of diseased, shit-covered carnivorous rodents trying to fight their way inside my mouth. If I can make that happen, I promise I won't complain about anything else. And in the unlikely event it does happen, tell the fire department not to pull me out. Just fill in the hole and pave the sidewalk back over and forget I ever existed. Because Alive, Recovering Jerry would envy Dead, Devoured by Rats Jerry, I promise you.