There were 8 kids altogether, and many of them were up different trees at any given moment. Us grown-ups were seated on a nearby bench (ill. 1).
My hubby was on his way over to disentangle one of the quads from some shrubbery when we both saw Jakob, falling. He was about 4 metres above the ground. He seemed to be falling in slow motion although his screaming hit us almost before he fell. And he was falling head first. He landed on his head, the rest of his body seemed to wrap itself around it. He was lying dead still. I felt sick instantly. My hubby was by him in seconds. I was next. I was 100 % sure his neck was broken, and I was searching to see where the blood must surely be pouring out! My hubby carried him over to the bench to stop me from inflicting further damage... Then Jakob spoke - "this is the worst day of my life!" - and I was overjoyed... (My hubby, seeing Jakob land, had been sure he was dead. Luckily he didn't say so until later, I was quite UNcalm as it was!)Hubby ran to get our car, then changed his mind and called an ambulance. It seemed to take forever to get there - but it did manage to get into the woods where we were! The ambulance personell - two guys - strapped Jakob to a stretcher (ill. 2).
In the ambulance, Jakob came to every now and then just to go "aaa" and "aarghghg" and "take this thing off my head"... In the hospital he was x-rayed from every position and through the strapping, then had a full CT (or was it MR? - one of those). Result: nothing broken, nothing wrong. In fact, only a mild concussion!The following weekend he played in a football [= soccer!] cup with the doc's blessings...
Still I can see him falling when I close my eyes. Still I love the hat (ill. 3)
that we made him wear even though he said it was too hot! Still I can't believe the luck he (we!) had when a) he hit a branch on his way down, it slowed him down somewhat and b) he hit turf. 8 inches either way from his landing point was solid rock. Yes, I do believe there is a God!
4 comments:
Yikes. I'm glad he was mostly unhurt.
Oh thank goodness that Jakob was fine! I know you must still feel that flutter of fear when you think of it though. What a memory...
That's made me all tense just reading! It must have been so scary, thank goodness he was alright, though.
I used to fall down the stairs all the time when I was little - kids will be kids, you can't stop them from doing stuff. Has he been up any trees since?
My grandmother's (9 yr old) older sister died by hitting her head on a tree root while jumping rope at school.
My older sister broke both wrists when she fell from the rafters of my parent's bedroom.
I had to be retrived from the top of an oak tree after climbing up a wisteria vine when I was less than 3 years old.
Kids climb. Most of us are lucky most of the time. There's a saying: God watches over children and drunks.
Good for Jakob that he's okay.
Post a Comment