Recollections of Joe Ragucci – Mike should add his recollections to this…

Michael also had his share of childhood injuries.

When Mike was quite young (maybe 5 years old) many times he would react in an angry fashion when told to do something that he didn’t want to do.  I remember this one day when he got angry over something and slammed the cellar storm door so hard that the glass cracked shattered and a large spike of glass shard went right into his wrist.   The wrist began to bleed profusely.  The amount of blood was amazing.  It looked like his wrist was cut half way down.  I remember trying to close it up with no luck.  My aunt Mary drove us to the emergency room where they stitched up the wrist. But he was so lucky. The doctor said it was deep and only a few millimeters away from cutting his main nerve.  If that had been severed, he would have loss all use of his hand. God was on his side.  As a result of this, Michael began to use his left hand more and became ambidextrous.  To this day you can see the scar across his wrist.

Another time I was playing baseball on a dirt field in Port Reading by Turner St where School #9 exists today. Mike was about 7 years old and was watching while I was playing the outfield.  All of a sudden Mike wandered too close to the batter.   When the batter swung, he hit Michael in the forehead and ripped a 2 inch gash in the skin.  Everyone just froze except for me as the blood covered his face and clothes.  I came running so fast from the outfield.  I reacted without thinking.  I can’t remember ever running that fast.   I closed the flap of skin over the wound and put pressure on it with the palm of my hand because it was so big.  I don’t know where I got the courage to do this.  We walked to the closest house (since we were far from home) and got the lady who lived there to call the First Aid. They rushed us to the Emergency room where they put lots of stitches to close up the wound. This scar is still visible today.