Close Call

The weeds at my place are out of control, so when a buddy of mine offered to bring his shredder over I jumped at the offer. When I got there he had just started, and I was watching. The weeds around my natural gas regulator were pretty high, and he didn't see it. I tried waving him off, but he thought I was just waving. He lowered the shredder over the regulator and broke it off at the ground. I covered my face with my arms, and part of the regulator flew and hit me in the knee. Gas was shooting in the air, and there was no valve to cut off at that point. I called the gas company. They were about 25 miles away, so we looked for stuff to stop the leak. I finally hammered a stick into the pipe, and used a rubber coupler to seal it off. The gasman re-plugged it and came the next day and fixed it. My friend felt like a heel, but it was just one of those things that happens. I was just glad it didn't ignite or explode.