THE FALL

…mine was not as elegantly executed, but if you are interested and have not yet heard the story…..read on. 


( I am not sure the text will transfer well as I have pasted it from elsewhere)

It seems that I have never actually explained on Blip how I had my accident and as a few people have asked I will share the story. Trust me, it is not a glamorous tale; it was not while I was doing something extremely adventurous or exciting, but merely walking along the deck at our cottage! 

I tripped over a footstool that was sitting in front of one of our Adirondack chairs. The footstool is almost knee-high so when I ran into it, I flew into the air and landed smack bang right into the wall of the cottage, head and shoulders first. When I became aware later, I was lying on the deck, on my back, with both arms lying out straight beside me, and I realized I could not move. I figured at that time that I had probably broken both
arms.

I was alone at the cottage at the time but expecting my daughter and son-in-law to visit later in the day. The cottage is on a little island with no neighbors, but I tried crying for help anyway. Obviously, no one could hear me .. boats were passing out on the bay but they were too far away. The wind was blowing, and the waves were crashing so I soon realized there was no-one who would hear me. I decided to save my energy and just lie there waiting for my daughter to arrive. 

Two hours later they arrived and called 911. It’s not easy to get 911 service on an island 7 miles out by water. It involves the police bringing the paramedics in the police boat and that takes time to arrange. The only boat available was the smaller one in their fleet, and it was too small for them to bring a backboard. The paramedics arrived an hour later, and then had to figure out how to get me into the boat without a backboard and back to town where we were met by the ambulance and taken to Emergency. 

They did the usual, x-rays and CAT scans, and diagnosed that I had two broken arms. The breaks were in the humerus of each arm. I ended up staying in that hospital for three weeks waiting for a bed to come up further south near where I live and where they actually have orthopedic staff. The broken arms were traumatic enough, but that interim where I couldn’t move, hoping that help was coming still scares me.


Lessons were learned not just for  me, but for my family and friends who live alone or vacation alone at an isolated cottage without some form of technology that can call for help when they cannot. My sister has already equipped herself with an Apple Watch just in case!