Small margins between lucky and serious injury - read on !

This must be one of the longest spells of blog inactivity for quite some while. Firstly apologies for the people who contacted me re the stuff for sale, I'll be in touch shortly.

So why the dramatic title... A couple of weeks ago I came so close to seriously injuring myself, I still ended up in A&E or ED (Emergency department - ergh) and I still have flashbacks to the incident such was the shock of it.

There will be some follow up posts about post incident activity and impacts but for now the executive summary....

I went to the boat on the 30th April to do some work which meant I needed to remove the steps  - see where this is going ! I was working well and climbed out of the back cabin to fetch my core drills. I always walk backwards down the steps as its safer and I hold onto the hatch rails while doing so. Yes I basically walked backwards off the counter and as I had tools in my hand could now hold my weight and basically fell 4 feet flat onto my back.

I literally had the moment of free falling knowing when I landed it was going to hurt. The picture below is my view as I lay on the floor in some state of shock, not sure if I'd broken my back. I lay there for a good five minutes just breathing and calming down literally scared to try and move in case I made it worse and considering if I was going to have to call 999 unsure if I'd been knocked out.

Excuse the mess, the picture on the left is what I fell into and the right the counter from which I just fell backwards from.

I was so lucky my head landed with a glancing blow from the tool box just behind the curtain, the tools on the floor are what I was carrying. Normally I am a much messier worker and if there had been anything in the area where I fell I could have broken my back for sure. If the tool box had been out I'd have broken my neck. Sounds dramatic but they were the margins by which I survived a the backwards fall.

I eventually moved and was relieved (and I'm not normally a dramatic person) I could move my legs and slowly get up. I knew I had hurt my back and I was an hours car drive from home so I locked the boat up and headed home before I started the inevitable seizing up as the body goes into protect and repair mode.

I was showing bad bruising and stiffness over the next few days, lots of mobility but any touching of the area was very painful. Now here is the rub... I was due on a motorcycle trip to Holland on the following Wednesday. I felt ok but still sore on the Tuesday so decided to get it checked out at the local walk in centre... bottom line there was initially I felt ok going in, just wanted to check there was no lasting damage, the three hour wait on hard chairs turned my problem from a check up to a visit to A&E as while sitting the pain became significant and a large lump literally appeared on my lower spine. Despite having an X-ray Leek walk in does not -Xray backs or necks (not noted on their web pages) and it closes at 12.30 on a Tuesday ( not noted on their web pages) So went in for a precautionary check up and left on my way to A&E in so much pain. Then it was the same process of waiting to be triaged, waiting to be seen by a doctor (nurse) X-ray and thankfully advised extensive bruising and some local damage but not broken. Still sore now but the lump is receding, the medical feedback was a secondary bleed to ( in my opinion) protect the area after being stuck still on a hard chair for three hours.

So If I'd had the floor up as was the next job I'd have landed on this .... and I have no doubt I'd have been a lot more damaged.

When I worked at the Uni many years ago a technician was decorating and fell from a small ladder and broke her back and spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair completely paralysed from the chest down.... small margins and I was very very lucky. So please be careful when doing the most mundane of things. If I was a cat I'd have used up one of my lives for sure !!