Did You Fall? Are You OK?

It was the day after a wonderful family Christmas. Everyone had dispersed. My son, Jake and his family, had left for Charleston for the week. My wife, Trimella, was in Winston-Salem enjoying an evening out with two of her closest friends.. I had arranged to meet the husbands of those two friends for dinner after going to Jake’s house to let his dog out and feed her. All had been going according to plan, until something unexpected happened that put those plans, and myself, on ice.

I went to the office in Boone to work and get some things done before handling the dog and dinner. I chose to park to the side of the building where the dumpsters were because I had some trash. Instead of driving around to the front, I entered WJ Office through the warehouse door, worked for a couple of hours and then moved onto to the next task. As I walked to my car, my mind was on the afternoon and evening ahead of me, not on the ground below.

My journey to the car was cut short by a slick, three-inch thick sheet of ice that was waiting for a victim. The fall took my breath away and left me disoriented for a moment. And as I lay flat on my back, it quickly became clear to me what had happened, particularly with the pain signals running from my leg to my brain. The fall detection alert on my Apple watch kicked in and asked me if I needed emergency services.

At first, I “manned up” and tapped in a quick decline. However just a moment or two later I realized I was in a heap of trouble, literally speaking. My right leg was extended, and my ankle was gruesomely twisted to the right, lying flat on the ground and swelling fast. I tried to move my leg, raising it a couple of inches, but my foot and ankle stayed on the ground. Clearly I had a badly broken leg.

As an old jock, I have been overly blessed with good health over my 72 years of age. Anyone who was ever been willing to listen to my tales would attest to my legacy of athletics; a career of no less than three sports through high school, college football for three years, countless hours of intramural sports, young adult softball and basketball leagues. I had never had a broken bone or an operation despite all of that competition. I knew that I had been lucky, and my listeners have always been as amazed as I have been with this record.

But all of that did little to relieve the pain I was in as I assessed my predicament on cold, hard ground, by myself and out of sight from anyone who may happen by.

Fortunately, I came to my senses and put in a 911 call from my cell phone. I then made two other calls: one to my son to let him know that he needed to make other arrangements about his dog, and then to one of my dinner companions. I did try to raise Trimella as well as one of her friends to advise them of my predicament, but neither line connected.

With nothing else to do but wait and reflect on the incident, I began to tremble from the cold. I was grateful for mobile technology both for the service itself and more so for the fact that my phone hadn’t scattered away from me when I hit the ground.

After some time, the EMT responders arrived and the very first thing I noticed was how careful they were – the young man and woman- as they approached me from their rig. They were very quick to deduce the difficulty of getting a person of my size up off of the ground and onto a gurney. It was a challenge under normal circumstances made even more so with slippery ice underfoot and a 238-pound patient with a bad case of the shivers.

They retrieved a blanket from the rig and pulled the gurney over beside me, pausing only once to mull things over. They rolled me to one side, slid the blanket under me, and positioned me as best they could toward the middle. We all knew there wasn’t enough horsepower to lift me up in the shape I was in.

Between chattering teeth, I suggested they position the gurney on the edge of the ice patch and slide the blanket and me to the bottom of the gurney. My theory was If they could help me get my shoulders and elbows onto the gurney, then perhaps all three of us could get enough of my body onto the gurney so that they could slide me the rest of the way. It was human collaboration at its best art form – and it worked.

As I finally made it into the ambulance, they had a million questions while they as they tried to start an IV line in vein, so to speak. My blood vessels had had constricted due to the cold, so that would have to wait until we arrived at the hospital nearby.

The ER was already at capacity handling other mishaps and accidents including many of local ski slopes. Fortunately, a room became available and I was in the exam room with a quick look over from the medical personnel. They were able to find a vein and administer a very welcomed pain killer drip.

Over the next few hours, I was in and out of X-ray, updated my wife over the phone and routed to a room on the surgical floor. X-ray scans revealed a fractures in the tibia and fibula bones. The surgeon told Trimella that it was “Theismannesque,” a term football fans will immediately connect with Joe Theismann’s career-ending injury in 1985. Fortunately in my case, the bone had not pierced the skin as it did with Theismann’s incident. However, but I was on a strict “no load bearing” protocol on my right leg that was going to be in effect for several weeks.

Surgery was performed on Tuesday evening, Dec 27. By Friday evening, I had checked into the Foley Center, Blowing Rock, where I underwent a physical therapy regimen that enabled me to heal enough to get back home.

There have been many challenges along the road to recovery, and there have been many things to be grateful for too. Lots of well wishes and prayers and really caring friends. The staff and administration at Foley were terrific. PT has been challenging yet motivating as well. My family (especially Trimella) has been ultra-supportive.

My folks at WJ Office know what to do and when and how to do it. This period has shown me what I have known for some time. We have a business, not just a place where the owner can have a job. Though my input is often integral to many decisions we’ve built the basis for “what would happen if he’s out of action for 30 days or more?”

So, I come through this experience realizing that I am a grateful, blessed man.

By the way, how was your Christmas holiday?