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I hate being cold. To even think of this story makes me cold. I hope this story makes you feel cold. Maybe a tingling in your fingertips or your ears start to burn or your toes might ask for socks. In the end though, it’s just a story. A true story, I promise, with just a bit of frostbite, which is not a terrible result really.

There are a lot of stories I could write about the time I spent in the Bakken oil field of North Dakota and Montana, but I think this one will suffice. When people say the word “cold” everybody has a different perception. My nieces and nephews from Florida use the word much differently than I use the word. But there is a certain point, certain temperatures, certain situations in which we will all agree about the word “cold.” I don’t mean just a little cold. I mean cold where you can not stop your body from shaking and you begin to wonder when your body just stops functioning. The kind of cold where you smash your fingertips as hard as you can against the metal casing in front of you just to feel something, and there is nothing. That kind of cold.

We left the shop about 10:30 pm and drove to the well site. This was a deep well and it was a bigger operation so there was a large crew and several trucks with all the equipment. There were five guys, big guys, in our truck. I was low on the totem pole for seniority so I would always sit in the back with two others. The back seat was fine. You could sleep easily and everybody pretty much minded their own business. On this particular drive, I was behind the passenger seat, and I had a clear view of the dashboard of the truck. The temperature gauge of the truck registered -47 degrees Fahrenheit. Driving down the road, listening to the radio, there would be announcements every few minutes warning of high winds, 20 mph winds consistently with some gusts reaching. 40 + mph, and deadly low temperatures throughout the night and into the next day. This is how I began my longest shift ever.

There are others who may disagree with me, but working in the oil field is not fun. You make a ton of money, but it is not fun. Miserable? Painful? Exhausting? Yes! Fun? Not so much.

We arrived at the well site about 11:30 pm on a Wednesday night, and everyone got out of the truck and headed back to the trailer we were towing. This trailer had all the personal protective equipment (PPE) we all had brought and a bunch of other supplies needed for the job. I picked up my coveralls that were laying on the floor and they did not change shape. The air was so cold that night that all the oil and everything else in those coveralls had frozen so rigidly that I had to take them to the truck for 10 minutes just to thaw them out enough to be able to slip them on. I had never experienced cold like this in my life, and this was just the beginning.

My job was not really all that difficult. My friend and I were responsible for cleaning all the casing (the metal piping that surrounds the actual well piping through which the oil actually flows) as it came out of the hole and then stack it in order so that we could load it all back into the hole in the same way once the problem with the well was fixed. Easy, but there was one small problem. Actually, there were several. First, my friend and I were the only two of the crew responsible for this part of the job. The rest of the crew was actually up on the derrick, where they were surrounded by wind screens and had electric heaters, so that some of them were working in long sleeve t-shirts because they were “hot.” My friend and I were exposed in the middle of the North Dakota plains surrounded by nothing but stars, and cold, bitterly cold, winds.

Another problem with working in the Bakken oil field in the winter is that you are only allowed to wear the thin, white cotton gloves that you can buy at any gas station. The reason for this is that many people who have worked in the oil fields long enough have less than ten fingers. It is just a part of the job. You work in the oil fields long enough, the probability is that something is going to happen, and it turns out that you usually lose fingers, or die. The reason for the cloth gloves is that if you get your hand caught in something, the gloves will tear and you (hopefully) can remove your hand. With leather mittens, although much warmer, there is no tearing and bad things happen, and the oil companies hate it when they have to pay to cut off your finger or amputate your whole arm, or any other such nonsense. These things tend to cut into profits, hence, thin, white, cotton gloves that do little to keep warmth in or keep the cold out. The third problem was that to clean the casing when it came out of the hole, you had to use this solvent that was so toxic it would basically just melt all the grease and other crap they used when screwing the casing together. The toxicity of the solvent was not the concern. The concern was that you had to apply the solvent so quickly and haphazardly that it would spray all over and eventually everything you were wearing was coated in this solvent, and wet! This included your hands, and wet hands in cold weather is not good.

Working in -47 degree weather with winds screaming across the midwestern plains at 20 + mph is bad. Working in this weather with cold, wet hands is worse. It is almost unbearable. Almost. I have frostbite on the tips of my fingers, but that’s it. I survived. We were done with this job at 1:30 am Friday morning. It had been a 26 hour shift. For one of those hours I was allowed to sleep in the truck. For 25 of those hours, my friend and I were doing what needed to be done. By the time the job was done and it was time to pack up, I was so tired that I could barely remove the oil-stained, solvent-soaked jacket and coveralls I was wearing. I was also feverish. I do not remember driving home that morning or how I got into my bed in my friend’s 26-foot trailer, but I remained in that bed for three days. I did not eat. I did not drink. I did not use the bathroom. I did survive, however. And therein lies a huge lesson that guides me daily.

The human brain, body, and spirit are so, so much more resilient than any of us will ever know. Trust in yourself. Do what needs to be done (and if you need three days to recover, so be it). You are an amazing individual with amazing abilities and grit. I believe in you because I believe in me. Whatever you are facing, it can be overcome.