BROKEN ARM

AGE - 9

This was during a school outing.  I was definitely not the right student to give dares to.  Everybody was dared to climb this one tree; and I immediately accepted.  So, like a monkey, I climbed the tree.  Instead of climbing to the specified branch and then climbing down or even just jumping off, I started swinging on the branch :-)  One of our ‘not so brilliant’ teachers came to me and said, “Get off the tree”.  What the teacher should have told me was stop swinging or climb down the trunk. 

Anyway, in the end it was entirely my fault.  As soon as I heard the teacher shouting at me, I let go.  I didn’t think it was too high for me and I didn’t look properly before jumping.  This was the first time I had jumped from such a high point immediately while I was swinging.  I did not slip onto the grass; I slipped onto the sewerage steel cover.  So my arm was quite numb and started hurting.  The teacher told me I will feel better later. I kept on telling her all day that my arm hurts.  She kept on telling me to be quiet, so I had to wait the entire day until my mother picked me up from school.  She immediately took me to our doctor.  The doctor told my mother that I had definitely broken one bone in my arm.  The other bone is slightly cracked but needs to be broken.  Otherwise the one bone will grow to be longer than the other broken arm since it needs months to heal.  My mother agreed that my 2nd bone should be broken.  So my doctor, put my arm on the table and without morphine or any warning; he broke the other bone in my arm.  My mother was completely stunned at the sight, but I think she was more surprised than I was.  I actually smiled when I saw her face.

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