August 22, 2005
That subject heading would seem to be obvious, wouldn't it?

Here's my story: Friday, the 19th, I was in the pool with my kids when I heard the phone ringing. I was pretty sure it was my wife calling to say she was leaving work and would meet us up at the school pool for open swim. But the boys and I had decided hanging in our own pool was fine--it was hot. So I jumped out of the pool and sprinted into the house.

Accidents happen. And they're often caused by sheer stupidity.

Soaking wet, I ran across the deck, into the living room on carpet, then the second I hit the kitchen vinyl tile I was on a totally frictionless surface. It was the classic pratfall. Skid, skid for about 8 feet, then feet up in the air and me flying back down to land on my back. (Missed the phone, too).

I'm lucky. I could have landed totally on my back, which would probably have taken me out for weeks, if not months. I could have landed on my head or my neck, which would have either killed me, paralyzed me or put me in the emergency room. The dopey dog of doom had been doing his usual "push my food bowl around the kitchen" thing or I would have landed right on top of it. I might have hit my head on the nearby kitchen island on the way down.

As it was, my right upper back/shoulder took the impact. And not happily. I couldn't move my arm on Friday. I spent a good part of Friday night with a cold compress, then sleeping with a heating pad, and with the full expectation that Saturday I may very well have to go to the ER anyway. Saturday was significantly better. I had some range of motion, thought not complete, the pain was more of a dull ache unless I took to moving it. Sunday was even better and I only took Tylenol once. It's a little sorer this morning because I think I actually slept on it a little bit last night.

Yes, I'm lucky. Years ago I was driving my Dodge Omni down a road and a semi-truck hauling a flatbed trailer was coming at me. One of its tires burned off the axle and went bouncing down the road and smashed into the front of my car, right where the driver sits. Caused over $3000 damage on a car that only cost $7000. As I relived the event that evening as I tried to fall asleep, one foot higher--half an mph faster for me--and the tire would have gone through my windshield instead of slammed into the grill. If ever there was proof of guardian angels, there it is.

Anyway, I seem to be on the mend and imagine I'll be pretty much 100% by the end of the week if I don't overdo it somehow.

I thought I'd take a second to compare this little accident with things that happen in books, TV and movies on a regular basis. Doesn't the hero always suffered massive trauma and get up and keep on going? As much as I love the movie "The Fugitive," do you really think Harrison Ford would have been able to move after bouncing around in that bus after it rolled down the embankment, let alone haul the guy out through the window, outrun the train, then run several miles through the woods? And let's not even get into jumping off the dam. (I like "24" reasonably well, having watched most of the second season, but come on--Jack survives a plane crash and has a tree branch jammed through this thigh and he yanks it out, bandages it up and goes on to save the world, or at least L.A., which is about the only part of the world TV shows care about).

I've watched a couple of the Home Alone movies with my kids and although they're funny, I also wince, because not only would most people be unable to move after some of those things, several of them would kill. The last one we watched Cauley McCaulkin was tossing bricks off the top of a building and hitting Daniel Stern and Joe Pescci on top of the head. I looked over at my kids and said, "This is a movie. Don't try this at home."

In my household we also routinely shout out, "And he outruns the racing wall of water!" You know, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Mummy Returns, X2 (X Men) and about a hundred other films have the characters running in front of a wall of water and outrunning it. Um, no. Won't happen. Sorry. A moving wall of Jell-O maybe, but floodwaters? No.

I won't explore this any further except to comment that in my upcoming novels, Derek does take a beating, getting tortured (with acupuncture) and beat up and shot at.... I use this, though. At the end of the first book he takes a kick to the knee that disables him. He doesn't get up and fight. He can't.

In the second book, he's had surgery on the knee and he's recovering very slowly, and he isn't running anywhere. Then he has an encounter with some local cops and one of them smashes his knee with his baton and Derek goes down hard. And the rest of the book he's hobbling around with a cane or crutches and having to say, "You go ahead, I'll catch up," which I try to exploit.

Oh, here's some medical trivia for that age old question, "If you jump in the air when the elevator's in free fall, will you survive?" No. You won't. Here's why. Your body is muscle and bone, nice and strong. Your internal organs, however, are suspended inside the skeleton and held in place with a webbing of flexible tissue. If your body is moving through space at a high velocity then stops suddenly, although your musculature and skeleton may handle it (maybe), your internal organs will continue to move at the speed it was going. In airline crashes where people aren't burned, decapitated (frighteningly enough, in airline crashes when the bodies are found often they are missing their legs, sheered off by hitting the seats in front of them as the plane comes apart--aren't you glad you stopped by this morning?), they often die of internal injuries caused by this phenomenon.

Best wishes & don't run with wet feet on vinyl tile,

Best,
Mark Terry