I find this out on Saturday when I phone my mother ("you know your father".  Besides, she only found this out from the vet, who phoned to see how Arthur was doing).   So I tell her to put dad on the phone, but apparently he is asleep (on Saturday, in that heat, asleep under two wool blankets and a duvet, wearing a wool sweater and still shivering).  Mum says to phone back around dinner time.  I try about a dozen times between six and seven and finally get a hold of my mother again.  Turns out dad woke up midafternoon and inspired by his 104 F fever decided to go walk the dogs up a closed logging road.    He took the van to drive up the first part of the logging road and as the fever meant the curves weren't where he expected, he put the van in the ditch.  Didn't have the winch or a towrope.  Took him about an hour and a half to get the van out of the ditch and get home.  Where he managed to make it inside before collapsing on the bed.  This is when I phoned, and told mother to put him on the phone.  He was essentially delirioius, couldn't form a sentence (except for "No doctor".  He managed that one).  But after about half an hour of arguing he agreed to go see a doctor on Sunday.  Then he conked out, and he's too heavy for mother to move so we were stuck waiting for Sunday morning.

So I phone first thing Sunday morning, and dad is now feeling better and back to swearing he doesn't need to see a doctor.  Naturally I argue this point, especially since I already know from my mother that he can't put any weight on the bitten leg and he is starting to look like the elephant man.   A ferocious argument ensues, which ends on my part at least with me giving him one hour to get to the emergency department at St. Josephs or so help me god I'm going to be on the next ferry and I'll yard his ass to the hospital in person.  Then I hung up.    Gave it twenty minutes, phoned back and got the machine so I left a "you had better be on your way to the hospital" message" and continued the countdown.  At the end of the hour I managed to wheedle the St Josephs' reception into confirming there was an R. Baldry logged in at the emergency.  The doctors there had him on a double dose of antibiotics and sent him home with a four a day prescription for the next week.  Hopefully he'll take them.  I don't really know, because now he is refusing to talk to me because I bullied him.