So here's what happened to my dad. He was a pilot for most of his adult life, but after he was laid off he started pursuing other avenues. Currently he's a driver for American Mobility Vans - he picks up disabled persons and drives them to doctor's appointments or what not. Apparently he was returning an elderly woman to this Catholic commune in the boonies outside of Mankato (MN). They had gotten a couple inches of freezing rain a couple days before, and they had refused to pick up this woman then because the hill to her place is incredibly narrow and steep. I guess they decided it was okay to pick her up last night. Well, my dad's trying to navigate up this ice-covered, steep, narrow and completely dark hill, but he isn't able to get up enough speed to make it around one corner. So he steps out of the van to call his dispatcher and tell her he's stuck when the van starts to roll backwards (it was in park). Mind you, the elderly woman is still inside the van and the van is either headed over the edge of a cliff or into a hillside. My dad is alongside the van trying to steer it to the hillside, which he does. Unfortunately there's a ditch before the hillside and with all of the ice, my dad slips and the van runs over his leg. The wheel went over his thigh and knee, but nothing broke and nothing was crushed. Since my dad was still mobile, he was able to try to get the van going again, but there's no way it would go up the hill. By this time a resident of the commune was coming down to help, and he and my dad ended up wheeling this lady wrapped in a blanket all the way up to her house.

A tow truck had arrived by this time but ended up sliding down the hill sideways for a bit. I'm a little fuzzy on all the details, but my dad apparently got the van down the hill again and drove back home. Damage to the van - driver's side door bends the other way now and the front bender is messed up. So my dad walks into the house and tells my mom he was run over by the van. My mom, being not only a nurse but a sensible woman, told him they were going to the ER. They spent a couple hours there, took a bunch of x-rays and went home.

When I called my dad this morning, he said he slept pretty good last night, was rather sore and couldn't bend down because of his leg, but that was about it. I could tell he just feels awful about what happened. He said he was "petrified" and "scared to death" that the van was going to go over the edge with the elderly woman in it, but thankfully that didn't happen.

So that was my dad's eventful night. Now I'm going to try to get a little sleep!