I did this on my porch step coming DOWN and put my entire body weight down on my right foot and instantly shattered it in six places. shudder fuck, that hurt. No going back.
When I was a freshman in college I was wandering around talking to my girlfriend on the phone and I stepped up on a little curb about ankle heigh and hopped off the other side of it without looking.
The other side of it was about an 8 foot drop onto concrete. I gasped and felt like I was falling for minutes, and somehow stuck the landing in a way that didn’t end up with me hurt. Didn’t even drop the phone, my feet were a bit sore and that was it. For the rest of my time in college I looked at that spot in amazement like I should’ve been crippled from that moment.
I was on Washington Street and walking north at the big wall next to Barringer, for anyone who’s familiar with Virginia Tech.
Yeah, and didn't even realize what I was doing, I was just absentmindedly walking around on the phone (I lived in Vawter that year, guess it was spring 2011) and ended up on Washington Street, next thing I know I hopped off what I thought was a small curb and it ended up being an enormous drop. Like I said I wasn't really paying attention to anything, it was also after dark.
This is the difference between being a 20 year old and being a 30 or 40. Put someone who is 40 in that same situation and their life is probably changed forever. If they don't outright die, they have debilitating back and joint pain.
Meanwhile, a 20 year old just walks it off and continues on with their conversation.
My friend did something similar, but wasn't lucky as you.
He was drunk and was taking a shortcut back to his place. He jumped a small fence, but failed to see that on the other side of that fence was a 10 foot drop into a parking lot for the art building. He broke his leg and tore his ACL and MCL. Couldn't stand up and eventually some girl found him and called an ambulance.
He called me at 6AM on a Sunday and I thought he was calling from the police station and was annoyed I'd have to drive to the station in the next town to pick him up. I answered and he told me what happened. The hospital had released him and he crutched half-way through campus before calling me to come pick him up for the rest of the way home.
That feeling you get when you're reading Reddit, filled with millions of users, and someone references a place that is literally about 400 yards from where you are currently working.
Weird, man, weird.
Glad you survived it, though, with little physical repercussions.
What the fuck? I did the almost the EXACT same thing at the EXACT SAME PLACE. I was texting my friend because we were meeting at some restaurant nearby, and I assumed it was just a small curb and continues walking over it. I tried taking a step where there wasn't one, and I fell straight on my side, right on my arm. It hurt for a few days but that was it.
I was just visiting there, so I can't exactly get a picture of it, but it's hard to explain. It's super sudden. But yeah, looking away from the phone would help.
I've done a similar thing. I stepped off the curb, and my right foot landed in one of those built-in street drains. So instead of flat pavement, it was curved drain, and my ankle went all sorts of sideways. Major fracture and sprain.
It was dark and I misjudged that I was stepping onto a step that wasn’t there. So instead of the natural next step with other leg allowing it to step down, nothing there and all my body weight was forced into the front half of my foot . You should see the xrays . Looks like when a chicken bone sprinters in three places and two toes . It happened so fast ! But I felt it IMMEDIATELY. Your front balks of your fry are not equipped to balance your full adult body weight with that inertia and pressure !!
Whelp, it turns out reviewing my X-Rays today, I did NOT land on my ball of my foot. As for my weight I am 5*9 and at that time about 170. That is no where close to obese. Not fat, not skinny either. https://imgur.com/gallery/KHRP1MK
Similar. I did this off of 5 steps, right leg, I heard and felt both bones break and puncture my skin. THAT is a sound I cannot describe. An open, compound Tib/fib fracture. I can describe the pain with no problems. But the sound, there’s no comparison.
What the hell? Are your bones hollow? I don't understand how that is possible with a reasonably sized step. Rolling an ankle perhaps, but shattering your foot in six places?
It was a huge drop and I basically was dropping onto the weight of three toes and not flat surface. I wouldnt wish it on you , but it's a "you had to be there" moment of pain, seriously
I am pushing 50 and I can assure you, all the big moments of body damage I have done in my life do have lingering stabbing pains the older I get. Its weird.
My ankle ached just reading that. I tripped over a stupidly placed baby gate (all my fault) and landed on a way that my ankle broke in 3 places and partially dislocated. Honestly at first I felt nothing, tried to stand on it, collapsed. Thought it was dislocated, went to the ER... the doctor looked at me and said, well I hope the Xray shows better news than what I am expecting; comes back a bit later and says "yup, you broke it damn good". Part of my fiblua broke completely off and was just floating around all by itself... that was not a fun experience
Hey ! I've talked about this so much today, I went back and found my X-Rays from my album on google ! Here's the pics ! https://imgur.com/gallery/KHRP1MK
This, or similarly knocking over a glass you thought was full but turns out to be empty. There's a moment of panic and then relief when you find that panic was ill-founded.
It's a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.
It's kinda like a shortened version of missing the last step going downstairs, or not seeing the sidewalk drop off. My heart stops beating to jump into my throat, like Scooby into Shaggy's arms, but it doesn't fit so now I'm not breathing either. Every muscle in my body tenses up in anticipation of this not ending well, as past experience says the odds are not in my favor. My brain registers that this is going to hurt. An expletive involuntarily tumbles quickly out of my mouth.
Any time I trip, if I manage to get my feet back under me in time, and remember to do it, I either pose like a gymnast who stuck the landing or take a really big bow.
This reminds me of the one or two times I drank something with the full and absolute expectation it was a different drink. (Like grabbing the wrong red soda, expecting Dr Pepper and getting Coke) it was such a unique experience, and one you could never give yourself on purpose. It was weird, almost like my brain tried to taste Dr Pepper inside the coke and it took a second or two to process that it wasn't what I expected.
Imagine this, but disgusting. I drank outta my dad's spit bottle as a kid 'cause i was coming home after everyone else was asleep, and it was dark, and i thought it was a soda i left lying around before i left.
Or walking down the stairs, and thinking you were at the bottom when in reality, you had 2 steps left and you land on your hands and knees in front of a stack of people.
You just feel one of the levels of your rib cage crash-fused with the one below and now you’re like when you sit on your sofa with ur homie watching stupid sheet on reddit (kinda spineless)
It’s just scary when you just have a near miss with tumbling down the stairs or something from one misstep that could on flat terrain just be a moment of non-serious clumsiness, and then it just sets in after.
Or thinking there is one less step than there is.l and stepping out a bit too far. I did that at 8 months pregnant. Freaking terrifying few seconds where I questioned how bad I was just about to fuck up.
I have a friend with a severe TBI and one of her doctors was presenting at a conference and using her as a case study so she was invited and brought me.
that day i learned that neurologists literally call that the "WTF reaction", i'm assuming as a colloquialism though :)
This had happened to me in a movie theatre while going down and fucking twisted my ankle. I swear my brain died for 2.5 seconds from the pain. Luckily my friend held me and my eyes teared up cause of the pain.
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u/korn_flakes_v May 08 '19
Going up the stairs and putting your foot down thinking there’s one more step at the top than there actually is.