In November of 1987 I was 9 years old and in the first semester of fourth grade. My parents were freshly divorced and lived in separate states with the two homes 60-70 miles apart, one in Virginia and mine in North Carolina. My mom worked a ton and my sister had her first after school job at a dry cleaners, this meant either go home to our condo alone or go to an afterschool program. We chose the after school program (at least briefly) so I could be under someone’s supervision, do some homework, have some outside time, and be around some friends.
On one particular November afternoon during our outside time, some friends and I were playing some form of tag I think when some bees decided to interrupt our game. A group of us were on top of this play house type structure and we all decided it was best to jump off in order to not get stung, after all the structure could only have been about 5 feet tall, not a big jump for a cool 9 year old and his buddy’s. Everyone was jumping to safety with great success, EXCEPT when I jumped my right foot slid down between two pieces of lumber and I fell off backwards with my leg lodged between two boards.
There are a few things I remember more vividly than anything that afternoon. 1) the sound of my femur POP from the torque of my chubby little body falling toward the ground while the lower half was still lodged in the lumber. 2) how cold I was once lowered to the ground by those workers that didn’t seem to be supervising very well. 3) when the nice EMS worker asked “if I was cold” as he was cutting my brand new sweatpants off of my body right there in front of everyone! I responded “yes, I’m cold, you’re cutting my sweatpants off”, turns out I was going into shock because of the break and I wasn’t cold because of my sweatpants being ruined. haha
The POP happened 38 years ago and that sound has never gone away. Turns out it was a pretty bad break, that “shattered” a growth plate. After I was finished growing I discovered that my right leg is about an inch shorter than my left. This difference didn’t mean much to me for a long time, my friends always thought I just had some strong southern pimp walk. I honestly didn’t notice it much until I started wearing a small insert (thanks to my physical therapist) to make up some of the difference. The difference played out okay I think, that leg is my natural back leg snowboarding (powder day cheat code).
So, to sum it up. Yes I have broken a bone-the biggest. If I could go back to 1987, I would’ve taken the bee sting (or 100) and gone on to work on my homework and kept that fresh pair of sweats in tact. Shout out to the EMS guy that cut my sweats (and underwear) right there in front of everyone.
My time in that afterschool program didn’t last long after I busted my head open at the end of October and broke my femur two weeks later, my mom decided I was safer at home in our condo or close to it at least.
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