Thoughtful Thursday: Broken bones? Once

Daily writing prompt

Have you ever broken a bone?

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I have had one broken bone in my life. It was a result of a combination of poor choices. I decided to ride my bicycle 9 miles home, which was more like an hour and a half of riding. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but due to another poor choice I was wearing loafers. That was a poor combination, but being close to home and wanting my ride to be over I took advantage of a freeway overpass. Coming down the leeward side I timed my travel to propel me up to about 40MPH. This was great until I tried to make the propulsion last as long as possible by continuing to pedal at a high rate of speed.

When I was pedalling along the roadside the heel of my loafer slipped into the front wheel spokes and flipped me headfirst towards the pavement. As a usual reaction to a fall I raised my arms in front of my face to take the initial impact of the fall. They very quickly broke away and my helmet took the rest of the skid causing the front half to disappear. After I came to a stop I wasn’t able to stand up, but someone came over to me being near a shopping center. I asked them to remove the bicycle from my legs so I could stand up. I looked at the bike after I got up and realized I wouldn’t be riding the rest of the way home.

My left arm was painful to fully entend, but I might have been able to ride had the vehicle survived. Gratefully, a man gave me a ride home who had a truck. I asked him what he did for a living and he told me that he designed and built hydro-electric dams. Once I arrived I took the bike to its normal location around the back of the house and came in the backdoor.

The look of shock on the faces of my family told me there was more to the story. I went to the mirror and realized I had forgotten to take my helmet off. The front half was gone and my forehead had scratches that were bleeding slowly my elbows were scratched up, but only the left side was difficult to move. Despite just wanting to clean up and move on with life my parents decided that I should go to the emergency room.

After sitting for a few hours at the emergency room they took me through to X-ray, and another hour later I was told that I had a partial break of the ulna.

I have torn a lot of soft tissue and been through many injuries before and since, but as far as broken bones I have not yet had another.