I hold on for dear life to buggy/carts in stores.
I’m a light weight and have been nearly knocked down a number of times by other shoppers racing thru the store.
One guy was pushing a cart with a tall box and didn’t see me.
Oh yeah. I go down about once a year. My attempt to balance to prevent it looks like a 3 stooges skit. Just needs sound affects.Those aren’t too bad.
The bad ones are when you are treading carefully, and then bang, you find yourself on the ground. Can’t do a ‘protected’ fall.
Once about 3 years ago I was on my way to the tool shed. Was a skim of snow. On top of glare ice. That’s the worst. I couldn’t get my feet back under me to stand. So I sort of swum crawled to the shed, hoping there was salt in there. There was. So I was able to make my way back to the
house, slowly. I left my dignity on the ground though.
Another long winter-dweller. I know it wouldn’t help with many of these situations, but I swear by these:
I wear them for walking down the driveway with the dogs.
I also have Kahtoola microspikes but they’re more like crampons for hiking. They have less pointy ones, too.
https://www.rei.com/product/890608/kahtoola-microspikes-traction-system?sku=8906080006&store=&CAWELAID=120217890003774027&CAGPSPN=pla&CAAGID=101964923735&CATCI=pla-451719466747&cm_mmc=PLA_Google|21700000001700551_8906080006|451719466747|NB|71700000066695711&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA7Y28BhAnEiwAAdOJUCeX5NduB8uefRw0jcf6Eyx3gFozo7_rkqkka713TGJSl-v-_h-gjhoC-pcQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
I am not old and generally quite fit, but a couple of months ago, I slipped on a puddle ofsome left behind hair conditioner from my kids in the shower/tub and ripped the shower curtain off / Hitchcock style to avoid going down!!!
I now have a dual sucction cup wallhandle (think the ones they use to move around window panes) in my shower… It is a godsend for getting over the rim of the tub in an environment where everything is slippery as snot when wet and everything is harder than your scullbones.
I wouldn’t personally trust suction cups for anything that could be catastrophic if it lets go. I tried them for mounting a basket to hold shampoo and conditioner in the shower stall. After several incidents of mysterious “crash - bangs!” in the night, I eventually used 3M adhesive hooks and they’ve been holding fine for years. But I’d never use those for personal support, either.
The thing about physical personal support systems is the scary thought about what happens if they fail. It would be worse than not having them at all. IMHO those things should be firmly bolted to the studs in the wall.
It’s been over 10 years now but I remember it well. There was an ice storm that blanketed the entire area. We were in Fort Indiantown Gap leaving at the end of the weekend. I was carrying my gear and had my hands full. I did a full cartoon flip on the ice. Came down hard on my back. I don’t know how I had the presence of mind to do it but I tucked my chin tight to my chest. I was holding it so tight that the muscles in my neck were severely strained but it saved me from bouncing my head on the concrete. I was sore and bruised but no bad injuries. At the same time a friend of mine was at his house and had a very similar fall. He wasn’t able to hold his head like I did. He bounced his head off the ground and had a really bad concussion. He was out of work for weeks.
Chicago and usually once a year. Funny that it’s always stone cold sober. I could be walking back to my apartment on nothing but ice cream and somehow lose it on a slushy icy mess.
Of course, teetotaller relatives who live in the sunbelt assume I’ve had two bottles of Jack Daniels by ten am and I ‘deserved’ it.
I completely see your point - for many usage cases they might be a risk of “false safety” … but
mine are:
- professional grade suction cups (with physical levers)
- AND (that AND is important)
- my wall tiles are slick as a glass-pane
After 1 year being there, I feel I’d rather rip out the huge 60x60cm tile than have the cup go …
but again - your point stands and is important for most cases
My coworker slipped on some ice when he was jogging about 20 years ago. (Yea, not wise to jog in icy conditions.) He was around 50 years old at the time, and cracked his hip. He eventually got a hip replacement ten years later.
Whenever I am walking on ice, I always remind myself what happened to him, and am very careful.
Speaking of that, what’s the best strategy for walking on ice? I walk slowly, with knees slightly bent, and lean forward. With the idea being that I would rather fall forward than backwards. But I’m not sure if that’s really the best strategy.
Head down, watching the terrain. Look for clear areas if there are any, and extra caution for snow on ice. I often walk on the snow beside the tire ruts rather than in them, because the tire ruts will be slippier. I tend to walk with a slow wide stance to avoid both feet ending up on the same slippery spot.
I’ve been in my current house since 1994, when a house on top of a small hill seemed a much better idea than it does now. I spend an awful lot of my winter shoveling snow from a sloped driveway, and spreading gravel by hand - two #10 fruit juice cans at a time.
Ah well, it’s good exercise - as long as the winter stays cold, and snow is all I have to deal with. Some winters (like this one) see a freeze-thaw cycle with freezing rain that coats everything thickly.
Someone mentioned the Three Stooges? If I fall on my icy driveway, I not only get whatever painful impact the ground has in store for me, I also find myself heading for the bottom on what turns out to be a very uncomfortable slide. Youch !
So far this winter, just one bad bruise on my hip. Keeping my fingers crossed (and the gravel bags ready). Also, I finally broke down and have started using ice cleats.
My wife swears by hers. At some point over the winter the bike/running paths around here ice up and do not melt for weeks/months. But she can keep running in her cleats. Yak-Traks I believe.
From what I can tell, Yaktrax makes a variety of different types. I have been using the most commonly available ones, but can see that I will be needing to familiarize myself with other kinds (including other companies’ versions).
I was reading an article in Scientific American a couple months ago about the elderly and falls – not necessarily on ice. It mentioned even if there is no injury the incident can make them fearful to move at all hastening physical and mental deterioration.
Keep us informed on how it’s going. I’m old enough now that I fear falling. Ive broken things three times now in less than four years.
Back in the early eighties I was at school for a year in Chicago. I was walking with a friend and it was icy. Suddenly I’m rolling around on the ground yelling and clutching my head. According to the person I was with my feet slipped forward into the air and my head was the first thing to hit the ground. It happened so fast I didn’t even notice the fall, just the pain. I missed school the next day as my head hurt so badly.
My icefall story is kind of iffy. It happened about 35 years ago, and it seems to have resurfaced in a way. I rode my bicycle to the grocery store after work at 2am, put a bunch of stuff in my backpack and rode home. It was very cold but dry, so riding was not a problem. Except, as I reached the far side of the bridge, I left the sidewalk, crossed the empty ramp and apparently hit the only patch of ice in the city.
The roadway I was crossing was descending from my right to left, so the slippery patch laid me down on my right side. The pain was intense, but fortunately it was less than a mile from my apartment (3rd floor, no elevator).
The next day I went to a clinic, they took pictures and concluded that I had a broken collar bone with a separation. The doctor said she had not seen one like that before, and I concluded that the weight of my pack strap had broken the end of the bone near the shoulder.
Perhaps related to that, my right shoulder became painfully problematic a couple weeks ago. It was assessed to be a pinched nerve, which would be in my neck, but I suspect that that old injury is not helping things. I have lost voluntary mobility in that shoulder, though I can move my upper arm a little if my hand is perched on something. It is frustrating to me, to feel like a semi-crippled person.
Hey Alpine, where ya been?
I’m also a Yaktrax user. They are getting difficult for me to put on though. I have some nerve problems in my left hand that has robbed me of grip strength, and feeling in two fingers.
So I’m trying different types that are easier to put on. Jury is still out on those.
And yup, same situation. Our driveway is steep and sometimes there is an ice dam at the bottom of it. I might have that fixed though 
~ enipla
small steps to keep momentum low, flex’d knees and the center of gravity low between your feet
As I live in rural New England, and as climate change has brought a lot more ice to winters (freeze/thaw cycles instead of snow piling on snow), I wear ice cleats on my barn boots. I tried yaktrax (they rust), kahtoolas (mine tended to fall off when hiking), and now I have Hillsounds, which are all-rubber pull ons. They are hard to get on, but you can walk safely across an ice field with them on, and they do not fall off.
They are not good for cities, I would think. They slide on bare concrete and rock.
However, last week, while wearing snow boots, I missed my footing and slid all the way down a flight of carpeted steep stairs on my butt. Mildly bruised.
Living in LatAm, falling on ice is low on my risk-list …
yet I managed to …
a couple of years ago, stepping on a knee-high wall that runs along side a very flat flight of stairs, I stepped on this wall and next thing I remember lying on my back in the grass behind it …
There is a barrel that contains water-run-off from the roof that I use for watering on this little wall - and so there are splashes around this barrel (on the small wall) that obv. froze overnight … I was lucky to not have cracked open my head on the wall and falling straight flat into the grass …