I happily left my job in corporate America on Friday, September 23, 2011.

Being “free at last,” I decided to take a trip to the wild side of life (you must understand that the greatest risk I normally take in my life is cooking without a recipe ).

Anyway, I decided that a Segway Tour of the Arts District in Fort Worth would be a fun thing to do, so I invited some women friends (all over 50 years of age) to join me on such a tour. As some readers probably know, a Segway is a motorized scooter that is controlled by shifting your weight forward and aft on the foot bed of the scooter; e.g., there are no controls on the handlebars, e.g., the rider has no brake or accelerator pedals or hand controls. If a rider wants to go faster, she moves her weight forward on the footbed and to slow down, she does the opposite. Everything was going along okay, until 5 minutes before the Tour was scheduled to end when I began to feel lightheaded like I might faint.

Self talk began: “You’re not gonna faint. You just feel like you’re gonna faint, but you’re not gonna faint…that would be a silly thing to do, you've felt like you were going to faint at other times in your life and you didnt and you won't faint now, either...you can make it back to the finish line where we started two hours ago…heck, we’re almost back there now…only 5 more minutes and everything’s gonna…”

And my eyes opened just as the ambulance was pulling into Harris Hospital Emergency Room…banged up face, legs, and head concussion.

My only explanation is that I must hve been like soldiers who faint when they've had to stand at attention in the hot sun for too long...knees locked, no circulation, etc. Since my feet controlled the scooter, I couldn't "shake out" my legs for two hours, and I think the blood just drained from my head and made me faint (I've never fainted before in this lifetime).

My friends who were there said that when I fainted, I slumped forward which sped up the Segway, it crazily veered from the sidewalk into the street where it hit a high curb going full speed ahead, and I went over the handlebars. Must have been a pretty sight to see a 66-year-old woman flying over the handlebars, knocked out cold, bleeding all over her face, elbow, legs.

Note to self: “If you feel like you’re going to faint, stop what you’re doing, sit down, and figure it out.”

Fortunately, no permanent scars or injuries (that are apparent so far....). I act a little wacky sometimes, but that's just the "normal me."