Well, I've not written anything for a good while now. At least some of that is because my most recent encounter with gravity.
On Friday 22 June, at the end of a hard day's work, it was time to head off to the pub (please note: to the pub, not from the pub) to have a farewell drink with a colleague who was leaving for another job. I went down a flight of stairs and then spun through 180 degrees to head down the next flight. As I stepped off, I caught my heal on the top stair and before I knew it I was airborne, head first. In my dreams I can fly but I realised that, since I was awake, that particular skill would not be available to me.
My recollection of the next brief interval lends weight to the idea that time appears to slow down in extremis. Apart from shouting very loudly (something along the lines of, "Aaaaaarggggghhhh!!!!!!") as I travelled, I remember taking in my surroundings (hard, tiled stairs with a hard, tiled floor at the bottom) and realising that I was about to hurt myself seriously. I noticed that my arms were extended in front of me in an instinctive attempt to stop the fall. I had time, it seemed, to realise that this classic reaction usually ended with broken wrists and so I lifted my hands to avoid serious damage to my arms but retain some protection for my face and head. Unfortunately, I was turning a slow somersault as I went, which meant that my forearms hit the second or third step from the bottom at exactly the wrong angle.
My landing was hard and painful.
I picked myself up from the crumpled heap I had formed at the foot of the stairs with acute pain in my right hand and left wrist. I flexed my fingers and, relieved to find everything worked, assumed that nothing was broken. Remarkably, I seemed otherwise intact. I had been very lucky.
By the time I reached my car, my hand and wrist were very sore. In an adrenalin-induced state of confusion, I decided that the best thing to do was to drive home(!), a journey of about 14 miles, and then get my Beloved to take me to the A&E department of our local general hospital. By the time I got home, my left wrist had swollen and become even more sore.
To cut a long story short, I came home from casualty four and a half hours later with my left wrist in a splint, my right forearm bandaged and two fingers strapped together, and with an appointment for Monday's trauma clinic. I had broken my 5th metacarpal, right hand, and left radius styloid.
To cut an already-shortened story shorter, I ended up being off work for four weeks. I was unable to drive, could not type, manage buttons, pick my nose or scratch inside my ears, could not push or pull doors, or put my socks on. I was relieved to discover that the functioning two fingers and thumb of my right hand enabled me to perform essential toilet functions ...
I am now back at work, after five weeks off (the final week because of a bereavement). My right hand still aches by the end of the day, and I do not yet have full and pain-free movement in my wrist but I'm getting there.
I have revisited the scene and I was very surprised to see how short the flight of stairs was. It has eleven steps but, at the time, it seemed like twenty.
Gravity has tried to get my twice before (see the other 'Gravity' posts). Third time lucky. Still, I needed a break; unfortunately, I got two.
Showing posts with label Gravity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gravity. Show all posts
07 August 2012
15 January 2012
Warning! Singing can Damage your Health!
You would not believe that singing in a church choir could be a danger to life and limb, especially when the choir is made up of genteel folk among whom I am, at the age of 57, almost the youngest. However, last Thursday evening saw me in grave danger of injury by virtue of my membership...
I was running late and so left home in a bit of a hurry and forgetting to take a torch with me. Where I live, such a device is almost a necessity at this time of year. The path from home, along the course of a disused railway, is unlit and, on this particular moonless night, was absolutely pitch black. I realised my lack almost immediately I left the house but, being already late, I decided to press on unilluminated, trusting in my sense of direction and familiarity with the path. I took a shortcut to the church that leads away from the track, up some makeshift steps, round the back of some houses and into the village.
Choir practice went well and, afterwards, I started happily on my way home oblivious to the danger that lay ahead of me. By now it was, if anything, darker as any cloud cover had dispersed, robbing me of reflected street lighting and leaving me only with starlight once I had left the village. The darkness was made the more profound by the high hedges on either side of the shortcut. I picked my way along the uneven surface guided only by the light from my mobile phone. I reached the steps and could just about make out the wooden boards that demarked their front edges. I thought it would be good if someone painted them white so as to make them more visible for the wary pedestrian.
Approaching the point on the steps where they turn abruptly to the left, I placed my phone in my pocket. I may have been distracted by the stars, I may have been disorientated by the darkness. Whatever the reason, I failed to turn left with the steps and was suddenly walking on air. Not being in a cartoon, I found myself once more in the unrelenting grip of gravity (see this post for my previous encounter with this evil force) and plummeting down a bank about as steep as this backslash \ from a height of about four feet above what was potentially a doggy toilet below.
My right foot made contact with the bank but, because of its precipitous nature, I gained no purchase and was unable to arrest my descent. My left foot struggled similarly, serving to reduce my acceleration only a little from 9.8 metres per second per second. My right foot made a second contact near the bottom of the slope where it had begun to level out and my knee buckled beneath me, unable to cope with the impact combined with the uncertain direction of travel. By this point my body had acquired some angular momentum and, as a consquence, my head had begun its attempt to exchange its position with that of my feet. As I pitched forward, I threw my precious new music book away, leaving my hands free to make some attempt at saving face—literally.
I rolled and ended on my back, thankfully short of the metalled track, and apparently unsullied by anything erstwhile canine. I seemed to be in one piece and unharmed. My book was predominantly white so I had little trouble finding it. I headed off along the track, annoyed with myself for not bringing a torch and for getting mud on my new book. At home I checked for damage to my clothing and was relieved to find only mud on my kagoule and jeans.
The only physical effect turned out to be a little stiffness down my right side the next day. For that, I am thankful.
Of course, it's my own fault really. None of this would have happened if I had not joined the choir!
I was running late and so left home in a bit of a hurry and forgetting to take a torch with me. Where I live, such a device is almost a necessity at this time of year. The path from home, along the course of a disused railway, is unlit and, on this particular moonless night, was absolutely pitch black. I realised my lack almost immediately I left the house but, being already late, I decided to press on unilluminated, trusting in my sense of direction and familiarity with the path. I took a shortcut to the church that leads away from the track, up some makeshift steps, round the back of some houses and into the village.
Choir practice went well and, afterwards, I started happily on my way home oblivious to the danger that lay ahead of me. By now it was, if anything, darker as any cloud cover had dispersed, robbing me of reflected street lighting and leaving me only with starlight once I had left the village. The darkness was made the more profound by the high hedges on either side of the shortcut. I picked my way along the uneven surface guided only by the light from my mobile phone. I reached the steps and could just about make out the wooden boards that demarked their front edges. I thought it would be good if someone painted them white so as to make them more visible for the wary pedestrian.
Approaching the point on the steps where they turn abruptly to the left, I placed my phone in my pocket. I may have been distracted by the stars, I may have been disorientated by the darkness. Whatever the reason, I failed to turn left with the steps and was suddenly walking on air. Not being in a cartoon, I found myself once more in the unrelenting grip of gravity (see this post for my previous encounter with this evil force) and plummeting down a bank about as steep as this backslash \ from a height of about four feet above what was potentially a doggy toilet below.
My right foot made contact with the bank but, because of its precipitous nature, I gained no purchase and was unable to arrest my descent. My left foot struggled similarly, serving to reduce my acceleration only a little from 9.8 metres per second per second. My right foot made a second contact near the bottom of the slope where it had begun to level out and my knee buckled beneath me, unable to cope with the impact combined with the uncertain direction of travel. By this point my body had acquired some angular momentum and, as a consquence, my head had begun its attempt to exchange its position with that of my feet. As I pitched forward, I threw my precious new music book away, leaving my hands free to make some attempt at saving face—literally.
I rolled and ended on my back, thankfully short of the metalled track, and apparently unsullied by anything erstwhile canine. I seemed to be in one piece and unharmed. My book was predominantly white so I had little trouble finding it. I headed off along the track, annoyed with myself for not bringing a torch and for getting mud on my new book. At home I checked for damage to my clothing and was relieved to find only mud on my kagoule and jeans.
The only physical effect turned out to be a little stiffness down my right side the next day. For that, I am thankful.
Of course, it's my own fault really. None of this would have happened if I had not joined the choir!
12 November 2011
DIY - How to Fall Out of the Loft
We have decided to decorate the hallway. It should be easy because the hallway is a very small space. Needless to say, nothing is ever easy. It's complicated by virtue of the fact that I am married to a woman.
My Beloved wants new flooring, and I have to admit that the laminate flooring left by the house's previous owner is less than exciting. She also wanted a socket in the hallway (there having not been one up to now) and downlighters instead of a pendant light; all this in addition to new wallpaper and a lick of paint.
The socket got done on Thursday evening. This was surprisingly easy. The hallway is in the modern, single-storey extension of the house. Consequently, the internal walls are hollow and faced with plasterboard, much easier to work with than the lath-and-plaster construction in the old part of the house. The loft space above the extension has easy-to-find power cables, and so the obvious way to fit the socket was to drop a spur through the wall from above. This was all achieved with a couple of small holes needed to get past horizontal woodwork inside the wall, and only one hole drilled from above into the wrong room. The second attempt found the inside of the wall easily.
Today, I did the downlighters. The main problem with this job was having to clear junk from the loft so I could lift the boarding that lay over the area where one of the new lights was to go. I had already planned the job itself and bought the necessary fittings and additional tools on the way home on Thursday. Actually installing the lights was straightforward. The cutter I had bought made very simple the job of covering myself with plaster dust. Connecting wiring is always fiddly - there never seems to be enough room in a junction box. I dare say that electricians find it easy, having the benefit of plenty of practice, but for even the gifted amateur that I am it is a time-consuming, fiddly annoyance made worse by always being in a confined space. Connecting lighting units, their being overhead, also plays havoc with my neck and shoulders.
Anyway, all went well, and the final task was to make sure that the new lighting units were ventilated and not covered by loft insulation. Again, this was an easy task, and I had even remembered to buy (and wear) a mask to keep dust and insulation fibres out of my lungs.
Now we come to the highlight of the event. Crawling around between joists and roof bracing is a clumsy pass-time when you've been working for several hours and have forgotten to stop for lunch. One objective is to avoid placing one's foot in the room below by passing it through the plasterboard ceiling. In attempting to avoid the aforementioned disaster (successfully, I say now in an attempt to spare you any stress), I reached out to grasp a bookcase for support. This bookcase is normally nailed to the rafters but I had had to move it to get to the ceiling and, at this point in the proceedings, it was free-standing and unwilling to take my weight. Consequently, I found myself undertaking an unplanned lateral transition. In an attempt to arrest my fall, I stepped out only to find that my foot was on the less than firm support rendered by the open loft hatch. Had I not fitted a loft ladder when we moved into the house, I may well have fallen all the way to the floor below. As it happens, my concession to the influence of gravity was somewhat truncated, and I ended up half in and half out of the loft, having bent my thumb back during my flight, bashed my side against the rim of the hatchway, and clonked my right knee on the ladder for whose presence I heaved a hearty thanks heavenwards.
I decided that enough was enough and, since the actual job was done, I would reorganise the loft tomorrow and just tidy up the mess I had made down below.
Tomorrow, after a night's sleep has provided chance for the aches and bruises to set in, I will probably discover just how much damage I have done myself...
Meanwhile, I will attempt to allay the pain by use of muscle-relaxant in the form of a Cumberland Ale or two, and any other such medication that may be within reach...
My Beloved wants new flooring, and I have to admit that the laminate flooring left by the house's previous owner is less than exciting. She also wanted a socket in the hallway (there having not been one up to now) and downlighters instead of a pendant light; all this in addition to new wallpaper and a lick of paint.
The socket got done on Thursday evening. This was surprisingly easy. The hallway is in the modern, single-storey extension of the house. Consequently, the internal walls are hollow and faced with plasterboard, much easier to work with than the lath-and-plaster construction in the old part of the house. The loft space above the extension has easy-to-find power cables, and so the obvious way to fit the socket was to drop a spur through the wall from above. This was all achieved with a couple of small holes needed to get past horizontal woodwork inside the wall, and only one hole drilled from above into the wrong room. The second attempt found the inside of the wall easily.
Today, I did the downlighters. The main problem with this job was having to clear junk from the loft so I could lift the boarding that lay over the area where one of the new lights was to go. I had already planned the job itself and bought the necessary fittings and additional tools on the way home on Thursday. Actually installing the lights was straightforward. The cutter I had bought made very simple the job of covering myself with plaster dust. Connecting wiring is always fiddly - there never seems to be enough room in a junction box. I dare say that electricians find it easy, having the benefit of plenty of practice, but for even the gifted amateur that I am it is a time-consuming, fiddly annoyance made worse by always being in a confined space. Connecting lighting units, their being overhead, also plays havoc with my neck and shoulders.
Anyway, all went well, and the final task was to make sure that the new lighting units were ventilated and not covered by loft insulation. Again, this was an easy task, and I had even remembered to buy (and wear) a mask to keep dust and insulation fibres out of my lungs.
Now we come to the highlight of the event. Crawling around between joists and roof bracing is a clumsy pass-time when you've been working for several hours and have forgotten to stop for lunch. One objective is to avoid placing one's foot in the room below by passing it through the plasterboard ceiling. In attempting to avoid the aforementioned disaster (successfully, I say now in an attempt to spare you any stress), I reached out to grasp a bookcase for support. This bookcase is normally nailed to the rafters but I had had to move it to get to the ceiling and, at this point in the proceedings, it was free-standing and unwilling to take my weight. Consequently, I found myself undertaking an unplanned lateral transition. In an attempt to arrest my fall, I stepped out only to find that my foot was on the less than firm support rendered by the open loft hatch. Had I not fitted a loft ladder when we moved into the house, I may well have fallen all the way to the floor below. As it happens, my concession to the influence of gravity was somewhat truncated, and I ended up half in and half out of the loft, having bent my thumb back during my flight, bashed my side against the rim of the hatchway, and clonked my right knee on the ladder for whose presence I heaved a hearty thanks heavenwards.
I decided that enough was enough and, since the actual job was done, I would reorganise the loft tomorrow and just tidy up the mess I had made down below.
Tomorrow, after a night's sleep has provided chance for the aches and bruises to set in, I will probably discover just how much damage I have done myself...
Meanwhile, I will attempt to allay the pain by use of muscle-relaxant in the form of a Cumberland Ale or two, and any other such medication that may be within reach...
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