PORT ANGELES — Jim Hallett, a former Port Angeles mayor and current president of the three-member Port of Port Angeles board of commissioners, is maintaining his sense of humor while recovering from a fall in which he broke his nose.
“You could say my nose is out of joint,” quipped Hallett, 57.
“My nose hurts; my neck hurts; my arms and neck hurt.
“Your head is not meant to be a shock absorber.”
Hallett received a half-dozen stitches at Olympic Medical Center early Monday morning after being sick with a 102-degree temperature and fainting while standing in the bathroom, he said Thursday.
“I don’t remember falling,” he said.
Hallett, who weighs about 175 pounds, “must have made quite a noise” when he collapsed, he said.
“My wife [Joanne] was quite concerned, and I remember hearing her voice and thinking, ‘I wonder why she’s talking to me.’
“I thought I was supposed to be asleep, and I was on the floor.
“Blood was pooling on the floor, and my head hurt like crazy.”
Terrifying situation
Had their roles been reversed, Hallett would have been terrified, he said.
“She realized it was something that she needed help with,” he said.
“I heard her dialing the phone and talking on the other end.”
Clallam County Fire District No. 2 emergency personnel arrived, and Hallett was transported to the hospital emergency room.
There, he spent almost eight hours getting treated, stitched and tested, with his neck in a brace part of the time.
Medical personnel discovered a slight fracture in Hallett’s neck that could have been from a previous injury, he said.
“Imagine standing straight, facing forward, and I went forward and had nothing to break my fall,” he said.
“Thankfully, I have a big nose.
“It broke my fall, and it messed up my nose.”
No blood clot
Tests ruled out a blood clot, he added.
But the effects of the fall will be obvious.
“I’m developing raccoon eyes as we speak,” he said.
Hallett, the 2010 and 2011 president of the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce, was on the Port Angeles City Council from 1986 through 1993 and was elected as a port commissioner in 2011.
A registered investment adviser, he owns Hallett & Associates in Port Angeles.
Hallett turns 58 today.
“This will be my birthday present to myself,” he said.
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
