The Dangers of Being Accident-Prone

“I’m not as accident-prone as I used to be,” stated the blog post that was originally going to be here.

It was part of a personal update about life and blogging during the time of Corona. I talked about my working from home situation and what it’s been like self-quarantining so far. Most of all, I talked about the effect the current situation has had on this blog. About how I have less time to write because I used to do most of my writing during the long daily commute to and from work. About how staying indoors and not doing much has limited the stories I had to share, specifically when it came to the kind of  accident-prone incidents that I am well known for.

All of this is still true apart from the line about not being that accident-prone at the moment. It turns out it was a mistake to write that line because less than an hour later it was proved very, very wrong indeed.

Before I continue this story I should state that my son is and was fine.

Less than an hour after writing the fate tempting sentence I was removing the side wheels from my son’s bike. We were going to partake in that traditional father/son bonding experience, learning to ride a bike together (by which I mean I would be teaching and he would hopefully be learning).

Everything started fine as I helped guide him along the pavement outside our house. He was wobbling a bit as I held him but he would occasionally seem to find his balance. We started to pick up a bit more speed. In hindsight that was the mistake. Not realizing that yet I carefully took my hands away slightly, keeping them nearby in case I had to quickly grab him. Suddenly his balance went, his handlebars snapped to the left and it turns out my reactions are not that fast.

Suddenly his bike was in front of me instead of beside me, falling in what felt like slow motion. I tripped over the surprise bicycle-based obstacle and began to fall with him. I twisted in an attempt to both catch my son and not fall on top of him. I failed at one and succeeded at the other. Unfortunately catching him was a failure but luckily not landing on him was a success. Doubly luckily was the fact that he had a bicycle helmet on and beyond having a big scare he was okay. 

His injuries were quickly forgotten with an ice-cream. I, on the other hand, enjoyed my ice-cream but my injury was not so easily forgotten. 

As I fell I think I struck the frame of the bike with my elbow or maybe it hit the concrete. To be honest it all happened so fast that I can’t quite remember. However, there was one thing I knew for sure. It really hurt.

I didn’t think it was broken. It felt like I’d hit my funny bone and was experiencing the painful shockwaves from it along my arm. When the pain started to settle down an hour, an ice pack and some paracetamol later my wife and I agreed that it was probably sprained. To be safe we put my arm in a sling (which we still had from when my son had broken his elbow just a year before).

To add insult to injury to the whole thing a short while later I dropped my phone and smashed the screen. Then, a few hours later my wife accidentally set fire to our garden table during a barbecue (thus continuing a family tradition). I really regretted writing that I was not being that accident-prone lately.

The next day things didn’t feel much better so I phoned the hospital and described my injury. They agreed from my description that it was probably sprained. At this point it’s probably worth mentioning that I have a bad habit of down playing pain and injuries when I describe them to someone. I think it is a very English trait. When people ask us how we are doing we tend to say we are fine even if our arm just dropped off and our house is burning down. After all, we don’t want to bother other people with our problems. That would be far too undignified.

I carried on for almost a week with my ‘sprained elbow’. It got a little less painful but not by much. The swelling was not really going down and my range of movement was still limited. On the morning of the sixth day we decided to get it checked by our local doctor.

As he examined my arm he asked if I’d fallen out of a window. After I’d told him the story he commented that the lack of reduction in swelling was suspicious. He sent me straight to the hospital for an x-ray.

An hour later, after the x-ray had been taken, and as my wife and I waited in the hospital examination room, we noticed that we were across the hall from the doctors office. Through the open door of our room and the window of theirs we could see a few of them looking at my x-ray. I tried to lip-read what they were saying, looking out for words such as ‘amputation’. Eventually I realized this was silly and stopped. I don’t even know the Dutch word for amputation.

A short while later the doctor came into our room and did a few tests, checking how well I could move my arm (a little) and how much it hurt if she poked it (not much surprisingly). Luckily she didn’t use any words like amputation (in Dutch or English) but it did turn out I’d done more than simply sprain my elbow. I’d fractured it. 

It was the exact same injury my three year old son had had on the same elbow the summer before. We now had a shared experience over which we could relate and share stories. Although there probably are healthier child/parent bonding techniques (like learning to ride a bike together… oh wait).

My arm was wrapped up in a ‘drukverband’ which is basically a cast without the crispy outer shell. In typical Dutch fashion I was prescribed paracetamol. Although they did tell me to take two every four hours instead of every six so I knew they must have been taking it seriously.

My arm is still wrapped up and in its sling as I write this story, which I’ve had to do entirely with my left hand. Did I mention that I am right handed… and very, very accident-prone? It’s amazing I’ve only broken a bone one other time.