Woman hurt in SUV crash in Oakland

By Phil Anderson

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL"As I started to feel my legs, I felt a large amount of hot, sticky substance going down my leg," Bullock said. "As I reached around, I felt the pole. I'm almost resting on it.""I immediately went into shock when the pole went in my leg," he said Wednesday from his hospital bed at Intermountain Medical Center."I thought (to myself in the car), 'I'm probably going to bleed to death,' " Bullock said. "It was impossible for me to really come to terms with the situation, I was in such shock."On the morning of August 6, the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Carl Kabat used a bolt cutter to snip the heavy wires of a chain link fence, one by one. Just through the fence, the Colorado prairie is pierced by a deep underground silo, capped with a thick slab of reinforced concrete. It conceals a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile with nuclear warheads, poised for The End.The SUV then continued traveling east, where it went down a curb and crossed both westbound and eastbound lanes of traffic on N.E. Sardou before it jumped a curb, finally coming to rest against a chain-link fence on the south side of N.E. Sardou.But for all of Bullock's bad luck, he also had quite a bit of good fortune with him that day. A nearby tree prevented his vehicle from tipping completely on its side, which could have pushed the pole into his body even further and possibly killed him. Even more fortunate, the pole completely missed his femur and the majority of tendons and ligaments. The only area heavily damaged was the femoral artery.President Obama had declared "America's commitment and desire to seek the peace and serenity of a world without nuclear weapons," and Kabat was going "to do my little bit," towards that goal, starting with this missile.Kabat first literally struck a blow for nuclear disarmament in September, 1980, at a warhead factory in Pennsylvania. He was one of the Plowshares Eight, who used simple hand tools to enact the biblical mandate of beating swords into plowshares and sparked a continuing series of nonviolent direct actions for disarmament known as Plowshares.Crews had power restored by 8:45 p.m.Kabat, 75, was also observing the 50th anniversary of his vows into the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Roman Catholic order. His early years as a priest included missionary work overseas amidst great poverty. For the last three decades, his digging at the American roots of the misery he observed abroad has resulted in more years in prison than on the streets.At silo N-8, the priest was dressed as a clown - the disarming garb he's donned for several other similar silo actions since 1994. His appearance confirmed that he's a "fool for Christ," as the apostle Paul wrote about. But this fool knows true crazy.

Phil Anderson can be reached at (785) 295-1195 or phil.anderson@cjonline.com.

Author: Phil Anderson