This fall I fell while stepping off a sidewalk. Strained a knee ligament pretty badly, couldn’t walk for a couple days, limped about six weeks. I took it as a wakeup call that I need to get stronger. Off to the gym, seeya!
When you take two young black labs to the dog park in a Minnesota winter, it’s best to just stay loose and expect to fall down at any time. Usually because a dog has knocked into your knees.
There’s been a lot of thawing and re-freezing lately, so my last fall was on the frozen field at the park, which I could literally ice-skate over if I had a mind to. Instead, I was doing that awkward shuffling waddle I’m reduced to on ice, and my dog took me down like a ton of bricks. Pleny of witnesses, but then again, everyone else was falling down too from time to time.
Two or three months ago, I was walking down to the boat club, caught the toe of my extremely pointy kitten heels in a crack in the side walk and fell flat on my face. I scraped up my hands and knees pretty bad but the worst thing was that I fell in front of a pack of teenage boys and looked like a total idiot. (and scraped the toe of my shoe )
I love your Serious Talk With the Doctor story, Lissa. I’ve told it several times. It’s great.
On December 28th, in a friend’s just-before-wedding chaos, I slipped on some ice at the bottom of a set of steps, and fell on my right knee. My pants ripped and my knee got skinned badly. Not a really bad fall, but that evening I had to kneel a lot to make final adjustments to the wedding dress. Ouch.
Wednesday night. Walking up the stairs carrying a full bag of just opened, steaming popcorn. And a glass of grape juice. End result was not as bad as it could have been.
That doesn’t beat the same set of stairs on my 36th birthday. I was walking down the hardwood steps in my stocking feet, when I missed the first step and slid all the way down the flight of steps. My right hand grabbed the rail, and my left hand attempted to brace myself as I slid. I spent 6 months in physical therapy for that one.
Just after Christmas my girlfriends and I decided to start walking in the evenings. I was COMPLETELY stoked about this since my doctor insists that I walk two miles a day anyway and now I had an iPod (thanks, honey) and a couple of friends to come with me.
I was SO excited that I decided not to wait until the firemen who pulled up to answer a call in an adjacent apartment pulled out of my parking lot. I figured, “Hey, there’s no cops! I’m sure it’s not a crime scene or anything… we’ll just walk RIGHT by them.”
So out I bound from my apartment door, ignorantly half jogging whilst setting the ipod to “genre” when SLAM! my foot caught a crack in the sidewalk wrong and SLAM! right down on my ass with my right palm smacking right into a mass of pebbles.
I wasn’t hurt outside of my pride and the pebble that became lodged in my palm, but HOLY COW was I embarrassed. I luuuurves me some firemen so my girls were laughing TWICE as hard (You know, like I planned this). As I got back to my feet one of the firemen came over and said, “Where’d you come from? Are you okay?” and I shot off at the mouth like a giddy school girl. “You know, anything to get your attention wink wink I’ll try to be more careful from here on out…”
:smack:
So he walks away and I dig the pebble out of my hand. He sees me showing my girlfriend the damage and COMES BACK to “take a look at it”.
swoon My heeero.
So he takes my hand, looks at it very intently, smiles and says, “Yeah, you’ll wanna wash that.” and takes off.
:o :o :o
About two months ago I fell down some stairs. I couldn’t walk for a few days. My ankle still hasn’t recovered. I’m still wearing a support bandage. My own fault really, I may of had one or two drinks. Okay, maybe a little more. To be honest, I don’t even remember doing it. I just woke up in the morning unable to walk. My friends told me about the stairs.
I won’t be drinking like that again for a while!
After the first month I saw a doctor about it. She told me it could take a few months to recover. So I’m stuck in trainers for a while on her order.
I trip and fall at least once a day - I’m a big klutz.
My most spectacular - the Kansas City Mayor’s Ethnic Commission puts on a ball every year, and I ususally go with a group from the Scottish society. The first year I went, I wore a big poofu skirt (I think it’s called a ‘ball skirt,’ maybe?), which, during dinner, got wrapped around my chair leg. After dinner, when I started to get up, the chair went over backwards and because of the skirt, took me with it. Our Scottish reps to the Ethnic Commission have been representing us forever, so they always get good tables toward the front with a good view of the entertainment. It also affords the VIP’s seated at the Mayor’s table on the dais a good view of us. Thankfully, a good number of them had already gotten up to ‘powder their noses’ and whatnot, so I really only made a fool of myself in front of folks who already know how I am.
I also slipped during a Samhain celebration and managed to not only put out my candle, but several other peoples’. At that point, we decided that we were just lucky I didn’t knock someone into the bonfire!
Just thought of two more good ones - taking a dog to the vet, and missed the step-off at the curb. At the same time, Binkely saw another dog and pulled that direction, and I landed on my side, right on top of my purse, breaking the monitor on my first Palm Pilot.
Last summer when Dad and I were in London, we took a Jack the Ripper walking tour. I did the same as above, missed the step-off at the curb because I was gawking around, only that time I stepped/fell onto a bit of a slope, so I went rolling when I landed. Never got the blood out of the knees of those pants from my skinned up knees! As if that wasn’t bad enough, Dad’s always in ‘watch’ mode, since my mom’s had her hip replacement replaced, so he was freaking out. Oh, geez, Dad, I do something like that at least twice a week, let’s not call any more attention to it than we have to, especially when I’m trying not to scream ‘tourist!’
Six days ago, stepping up the second stair from the family room to the kitchen, and landing smack on the arm that already had an undiagnosed fracture, from
18 days ago, somersaulting down stairs at a hotel at the beginning of our family vacation.
Before that, I don’t recall for sure; the last definite one was summer 2003, slipping feet-first down the carpeted stairs in my sock-feet, doing permanent damage to my wrist…
Am I going to be really strange if it’s been like 25 years or so? I really don’t remember any time since, save maybe on some Colorado black diamond. Besides that, the last I remember falling to the ground was around '81. I was walking across campus and all of a sudden just spiraled down into this little heap, fully conscious, freaked out but unable to move a muscle. After a minute or so I was able to stand, then walk on. I have no idea what caused it but a week or so later it hit me again. Was walking with friends this time and all of a sudden I dropped to my knees, then down on all fours and then, try as I might to hold it up, my head dropped and bounced off the sidewalk. Then I picked myself up, tried to explain to some rather astonished buddies that I wasn’t undergoing some alien bodysnatching, and it’s never happened again since.
I hadn’t fallen for a long, long time - until about two months ago when I tripped over some broken pavement when I was walking my dog. Fortunately I did not let go of the dog’s leash. He was a good boy. He got out of the way and licked my injured knee until I got up. It took a month for the bruises on my knees to go away.
I had something similar happen a week before a friend’s wedding last year, and I was a bridesmaid. I was dashing up the concrete stairs leading up to my front door, when my foot slid in my sandal, I went off balance, and fell forward. My right knee came down on the edge of the concrete stair, so hard that at first I worried I’d really done some serious damage to tendons or something similar. Turns out I “only” took a chunk of skin off about the size of a half dollar coin or so, in addition to serious bruising of the area. When my husband returned home from work and saw me laid up on the couch in obvious pain, at first he thought I was at “should have called 911” level but I assured him it just hurt like a SOB. Thank goodness the dresses were tea length, but I was a little stiff at walking due to still being bandaged plus that I hadn’t had time to break the shoes in; I’d planned on doing that during that week prior but just wasn’t eager to attempt it.
I think it was about three months ago. I had ran upstairs to get something while my boyfriend was taking to my dad downstairs. I always run down the stairs, because I’m an idiot. The last four steps curve around, so if you keep going straight you’ll hit the wall.
I kept going straight. I don’t know what the hell happened. You would think that if I tripped on the stairs, I might have put my arms out and hit the wall with my hands. Or maybe fallen on my butt and hit the wall with my feet. But no, somehow the entire weight of my falling body managed to slam my left knee into the wall. It hurt so bad I could hardly stand it, and my dad and boyfriend laughed at me! It hurt to walk for about a week, and I couldn’t bend that leg during that time. I still have three small red marks right under my kneecap, about the size of a pencil eraser, and it hurts if I apply force to them. I don’t know if that’s bad or not. Anyway, it’s pretty much better now, but I felt like a huge retard.
A couple of weeks ago. We’d been having daytime thawing that froze at night, and our driveway was a sheet of ice. I was headed out the front door to catch my ride to work and the next thing I knew, I could see both my feet. I had time to wonder what they were doing in the air, and then I landed. My stuff flew all over, my jeans got wet, and I had to shuffle-skate the rest of the way to the car. But I wound up with not so much as a bruise–the benefit of being a little plush, I guess.
Two days ago. I was sitting in the back of the bus on my way home from work. I pulled the cord a block before my stop and before the bus stopped, I got up out of my seat and walked toward the door (all the time holding the handrail above my head). Well, the bus was almost at a complete stop and I let go and began to exit the bus. All of the sudden, the bus lurched forward and caused me to fall backwards onto my butt. I was mortified because I had been flirting with/cruising a cute guy sitting across from me. He saw the whole thing. I think the driver did it on purpose. Then again, I think every MUNI driver/employee is out to get me.
Eric
Lissa, I loved that bit about the rolling stool! Well, I’m sorry you tripped. But you know what I mean.
I’m a little clumsy and I frequently do the “almost fall” thing where I flop around a lot, but eventually manage to mostly right myself in some way. The last time I took a header was last summer.
We were packing up the car to leave on vacation, and I was trying to carry as much as possible out to the car in one trip. I had a backpack over my shoulder, and then stuck my arms through the handles of a few smaller bags, and then picked up a shopping bag in each hand.
As I was walking out the patio door, I tripped over that slightly raised track that the sliding screen door runs along.
You know how it seems sometimes like these things happen in slow motion, and you have a lot of time to think about things? I remember thinking all of these things:
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Hey, I’m falling.
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I should put my hands out to break my fall.
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Yikes, but the patio is gravel, that’s really going to hurt when my hands hit it.
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Granted, but not as much as it’s going to hurt when my face hits it if I don’t break the fall with my hands.
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Okay then, putting hands out now.
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Oddly, my hands aren’t going out, what’s up with that?
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Oh, I see. All the bags have gotten tangled up so I can’t move my arms.
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Guess I’m back to breaking the fall with my face.
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Ow.
I actually ended up breaking the fall with a combination of knees, boobs, and chin. Still ow. I had scrapes on my knees, but I was amazed to have no marks on my chin. It was numb for about two days, though.
Can you please teach me to fall like that? Please?
About an hour ago, thanks to this thread.
I was leaving an auto parts store and fell headlong to the ground. First time in years. I’m too old to casually fall down.
mangeorge
Sorry about that, mangeorge! I hope this thread doesn’t jinx anyone else.
Although if it does, it would mean more people posting to my thread, hmm…