RIGHT BROKEN LEG – LEFT BROKEN FOOT – ALL IN 1 MONTH

AGE - 6

My main aim was to build a tree house.  I wanted to climb one of the highest trees and perform a closer examination for my tree house.  It would have been an enormous amount of work to start with the stairs and then see that this tree was not suitable.  The first branches were about 6 meters high; I had decided, the view would be excellent therefore this is a good tree to try. 

Unfortunately the trunk was so big that I couldn't put my legs or my arms around it.  So there was no way of climbing it like a normal tree.  I had to improvise.  Just once, after which I would make stairs to climb.  I found some rope that seemed fairly strong.  I never knew it was only parcel rope; I tied it to a rock and threw it over the lowest branch.  Just to make sure, I cut the rope and tied it again to the same rock and threw it over the branch again.  Now I thought I was ready to climb, I had 4 ropes in my hand.  My other big mistake was: I was at the wrong side of the tree; I started my climb from a stump, which was one meter high.  I thought if I use the stump, then I only have to climb 5 meters to climb. What a mistake, and I was barefoot.  This was no regular stump as you would imagine, a stump would be solid, this was an old stump, and it was very old. It was completely cracked and half degraded, therefore it was made out of hundreds of spikes.  I climbed up and up I went.  I started at 1 meter, then climbed 2 meters, then 3 meters and then 4 meters.  And then came that terrible sound, the snap of one rope.  The rope didn't snap at the branch, it snapped about 1 meter from the branch, this made 2 of the 4 ropes useless in my hand, what a mistake.  I looked down at the stump and thought about my bare feet, all my weight landing on these wooden spikes into my feet.  I never knew I only had seconds before the rest of the rope would snap.  So I lifted my feet and aimed my shins at the stump, not 90 degrees otherwise my knees would also be in danger, only my shins. 

And then it snapped again.  I must have fallen about 3 meters, after my shins impacted on the stump.  Thank God I did not fall with my bare feet into the stump; I would have still been standing for quite a while after impacted, stuck, and impaled by the wooden spikes.  The pain was excruciating, but all I could think about was that my shins were still fairly numb.  This was my best chance to pull the spikes out, if I delay it, the pain will flow in and then my skin will become sensitive and it will become even more difficult.  The largest spike must go first, it was about 3 centimeters thick, luckily only as deep as my bone, this was a bad experience because it seemed my skin didn’t want to let go of the wood.  It took me a few minutes to pull, with all my power to pull the wood out of my leg.  The walk home was excruciating. 

After a few meters, I had to walk downhill into the river bank.  It was then that I heard my leg crack; I thought I could start feeling my leg before, but now my right leg was very numb.  Not very painful unless I put pressure on it.  I cleaned the wounds in the bath and pulled out all the splinters.  The next day, I was taken to the hospital; my leg was not broken, just cracked.  It wasn’t very long since I cracked my leg; but the very morning that I felt healed enough, I was playing soccer on the outside basket court.  I was playing against the senior players, so it was an intense game.  At one time the soccer ball hit the goal post, and since I was playing against senior students, I rushed at full speed towards the corner of the basketball court.  I almost reached the ball before it crossed the line, but I was just too late.  Due to the speed I was travelling, I couldn't really stop, plus I wanted to regain the ball immediately. 

A few seconds later I woke up on the ground.  I was wondering what happened.  Apparently I was just hit by a car, so I tried to crawl out from under the bonnet of the car; I realized the car was still on my foot.  One of the senior students asked the car to reverse a bit.  It was very nice of my friend’s dad to stop his car, pick me up and drive me to the hospital.  The hospital freaked my mom out.  They phoned her and said, your son was hit by a car, he’s at the hospital.  But they couldn’t or didn’t tell her that I was ok.  My previous broken leg started hurting again, it was cracked again.  And my foot was broken so it was hard for me to walk for the next few weeks.  But I even returned to school that very day, and I was quite impressed when the whole class clapped for my arrival. 

I bet you anything the teacher told them to applause me.  Well it was a warm feeling in the end.  And it wasn’t long until I was playing soccer with my one foot still in plaster :-)

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