The Broken Bone Game

November 2013ish 

broken scaphoid right wrist

Drunken buildering on a retaining wall when a rock broke off. fell 15 feet like a sack of potatoes. Shrugged it off as a bad sprain and went climbing for a year before it hurt too badly. Got a single screw with a bone graft from further up the wrist.

JSchloem wrote:

Summer 2011- Skateboarding

Spiral fracture to the left fibula and fracture of left tibia 

Plate of unknown size with screws. ripped ligaments fixed with wires

Does that mean that I can say, somewhat accurately, that you have tendons of steel?

Hey hey i've got two new ones! 

Distal Phalange 1 - right (the tip of my right big toe). Broke it kicking a guy's shin guard in soccer.

Sacrum - Fell off a ladder and landed on my ass hard.

And not new ones: 

Both nasal bones - flipped in my kayak and my face found a rock on the bottom of the river before i could tuck. 

Left radius - Fell playing soccer and caught my weight on my wrist 

Left fibula - missed the crash pad 

Benk919 wrote:

Hey hey i've got two new ones! 

Distal Phalange 1 - right (the tip of my right big toe). Broke it kicking a guy's shin guard in soccer.

Well why the fuck did you do that?! No anger is worth a red card, you're only hurting your team (and in this case yourself). How hard is it to just play clean

eli poss wrote:

Well why the fuck did you do that?! No anger is worth a red card, you're only hurting your team (and in this case yourself). How hard is it to just play clean

lol relax, this was when i was 13. It wasn't intentional. 

Right cuboid, Foot, mountain-running in the winds. 

Superior anterior fracture of my L3. Ground fall while mixed climbing. I blew off, cam blew and gravity won.  

Benk919 wrote:

lol relax, this was when i was 13. It wasn't intentional. 

Huh, in the 15 years that I played soccer I never saw or heard of an unintentional kick in the shin hard enough to break bones. Sorry, that comment may have stirred some repressed bitterness of soccer and old rivalries.

But anyways, if we're now counting non-climbing injuries, I also have broken bones playing soccer. I broke my left thumb because somebody kicked it. My shoe fell off and as I bent down to retrieve it, another kid kicked my shoe and my hand with it. To this day, I still don't understand what moved this kid to kick my shoe and hand, he wasn't angry, nor was he remorseful. 

eli poss wrote:

To this day, I still don't understand what moved this kid to kick my shoe and hand, he wasn't angry, nor was he remorseful. 

Sociopath......... ;)

Rope behind leg on a long pitch, flipped and tried to catch myself. Finished the climb but had to bail when my hand just refused to let me belay. Result: fractured left scaphoid, hopefully just a cast to heal!

Skye Swoboda-Colberg wrote:

I hope you were wearing a helmet, and wish you a speedy recovery.

I'm sure glad I was! And thanks, caught it early so I'm hoping it heals up quick in time for ski season and winter/spring training!

I'll take right Ilium for 500. Took about a 1.5 foot fall while bouldering, missed a pad, landed straight on a sharp rock and broke the top few inches off

Left metacarpal 2 and 3, not climbing-related.

This is such a fun game! Awesome idea for a new wannabe medial professional. I'm confused on "hip" anatomy -- wouldn't it be actually be pelvis (then the sub categories would be Ilium, acetabulum, Ischium, and Pubis?. The hip is just the socket (the fall) at the top of the femur that goes in to the acetabulum. Right? 

Either way I have acetabulum and Ischium covered (more specifically, inferior and superior ramus). I am wondering if superior ramus classifies as pubis?  

I also have radius, L1, T12, and sacrum for extra credit.  Radius would plated together and I am going in for a third surgery in a few weeks for osteomyolitus. Pelvis (acetabulum, inferior and superior ramus, and sacrum were all fixed via an SI join fixation. The vertebrae were all healed on their own with a TLSO brace for 4 months. 

Specific story is here: http://www.rockandice.com/climbing/epics/hanging-by-a-thread

Oy vey!

Bill Lawry wrote:

Oy vey!

Well stated! Sheesh, glad you are still with us Craig, truly.

Best, OLH

Edit to add: I just re-read your story, to be sure it's the one I was thinking of. Super write up!

How are you doing? Will you put your x-rays in your resume?

Old Lady H -- I'm good! progress is both slower and faster than expected in a lot of aspects. I'm no longer wheelchair bound, so I'm appreciating most everything. I'm switching careers to the EMS world, since I already have a head start on the knowledge (and the xrays don't hurt the resume!). I have a second bone infection, which is a sizable setback, but those are to be expected. 

Craig Gorder wrote:

Old Lady H -- I'm good! progress is both slower and faster than expected in a lot of aspects. I'm no longer wheelchair bound, so I'm appreciating most everything. I'm switching careers to the EMS world, since I already have a head start on the knowledge (and the xrays don't hurt the resume!). I have a second bone infection, which is a sizable setback, but those are to be expected. 

Haha! I like the x-rays in the resume! I was actually not entirely joking. If I was looking for someone who "got it" in terms of what it is like to be hurt, trauma, the long, long, long time to recover....

On the EMS front, good luck with it! My son just got his first full fledged EMT job. I'm sure his search and rescue experience helped.

Sorry to hear about the infection. That's really tough. 

Best, OLH

Fractured my Left Patella while cliff diving. Apparently you are supposed to make a small jump from the cliff and not a big ass one. A big jump leads you right to a big ass rock hiding under water. 

waldo wrote:

Fractured my Left Patella while cliff diving. Apparently you are supposed to make a small jump from the cliff and not a big ass one. A big jump leads you right to a big ass rock hiding under water. 

Ouch! That seems like something someone should warn you about... I haven't been cliff diving much, but I tend to default to a big ass jump.