Got my butt kicked by an icy sidewalk, I think...

Last night I got my ass kicked by an icy sidewalk. At least, I think so; I can't really remember. All I know is that when I woke up (don't all great stories start with "when I woke up"?) I was lying on the ground and getting cold with my iPod still blaring in my ears. Somehow, I stumbled into a bus and showed the (scared looking) bus driver my bus pass. Somebody was kind enough to give me their seat; which is good cause I don't remember the rest of the ride after that. Later I found myself alone in a bathroom trying to wash the (plentiful) blood off my face without much luck. Some guy knocked at the door so I let him in and asked him where I was. He told me "Bus Station".

Ya see? Even senseless I can still use public transportation successfully. Go me! =)

This helpful guy told me to head over to the free clinic across the street. I asked for directions cause "across the street" sounded rather confusing to me at the time. Either way, I did reach the clinic by myself, but the two ladies behind the counter said that they couldn't do anything for me and suggested I go to the pharmacy next door. The pharmacist took one look at me, called me a cab and told me to go wait outside for it. *shrug* So I went and waited by the door for lack of a better idea of what I should be doing. A security guy at the door took one look at me and asked if he should call me an ambulance. "No" I said, "somebody called a cab".

Eventually the cab showed up and the security guy helped me into the back seat and told the driver to take me to an emergency room somewhere. The driver asked me which hospital I wanted to go to. I couldn't quite remember whereabouts I lived at that moment, but I seemed to remember that the Jewish General was closest (odd how my brain could figure out the latter, but not the former). So we arrived at the hospital and I handed the driver some money. He thankfully gave me some change. I got out and wandered in. I ended up at a sink trying to wash more blood off until a triage nurse found me and ushered me over to her desk to take my blood pressure, which she said was fine. "Oh good!" I thought to myself. To her I simply nodded when she told me to go wait in tne waiting room.

I found a payphone and decided to call the friend that I was supposed to have met for supper to tell her know I probably wasn't going to make it. Remembering phone numbers, how to dial and inset money prove a challenge. When I reached my friend she opted to come join me at the hospital, which I thought was very sweet of her. Long story short, some people looked me over, I got to wear a bracelet and a breezy hospital gown while they cleaned the gravel (yeah gravel) out of my forehead, gave me some drugs and put 10 stitches in my head. I also got a CT scan and a tetanus shot while sleeping/waiting for the results to come back. We got out of there around 12:30 am or so.

Now I'm taking the day off work and washing the blood out of my jeans, coat, gloves, head and iPod in between responding to emails. I have a headache, and don't look so pretty, but I don't foresee canceling the game I'm running on Saturday. By then I'll have been at home for three days and will welcome the company. I think.

Hope everything is good with you guys.

Luck has smiled on you, keep an eye out next time might not be so good for you. Sounds like you had a concussion.

Damned lucky you were in a city, out here there's no public transportation to rely on (course there are no sidewalks to slip on either). Don't think cabs come out here or at least if they do I've never seen them this far out in the country. It can be miles between any two places you might get help and if you were walking down the side of the road, which isn't uncommon round here and gave yourself a concussion you'd probably just wander off into the pastures and woodlots beside the road where you might not be found for days. Just last year I encountered a wreck where a woman had been thrown from here car and seriously injured. I'm talking open compound fractures, internal bleeding, etc. She was lucky somebody found her before she bled out.

Ouch! Slipping on the ice is no fun; glad to hear you're on the mend.

My father slipped and fell in an icy parking lot last winter, and fractured his elbow so severely that they had to wire it back together, and he'll never have full flexibility in the elbow again.

Gosh, I am really sorry to hear about this. Hope you feel better now...glad to hear that there were some nice people around there to help you.

Youch!! I hope you're feeling better by now. I'll tell you that your story is going to make me very careful when I go out next time...

Dammit man, that definitely sounds like a concussion - good to hear you got through it all okay and got to a hospital and such. Luckily when I got mine, it was in highschool as we were playing pick-up football and a really good friend of mine helped me out, otherwise I would've been f'd up even worse

hope you're feeling better,
--N

Ambrus said:

Last night I got my ass kicked by an icy sidewalk.

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Isn't Montreal such a fun city? I have managed to land solidly on my ass a few times, but so far no face plants.

My biggest worry is that one of these days when I am walking into my apartment, which is at the bottom of a 6-plex stack that I will slip on the steps on my way down. They have a tendency to ice up, and the only thing to break my fall will be my front window.

I wonder where you managed to bite it? That you were picking gravel out of your forehead, it sounds like the sidewalk had one of the removal units clear it / spread traction grit. That gravel is supposed to keep you from slipping, not make you perform a face plant.

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