Learning To Fly

Learning To Fly
Heights have never bothered me. I don’t suffer from vertigo or any kind of fear like that and have jumped from many fixed objects. From the garage roof into the swimming pool. The pool was only 4ft deep. How I am not in a wheelchair I don’t know. The top of the light pole at the end of the pier at the local beach, the partly sunken HMAS Cerberus, 10 meter towers at public swimming pools. From 30 thousand ft from an aeroplane but I was strapped to another guy with a parachute. I use to go to the local heath land with a friend and we would see if we could get from one side to the other without touching the ground. In other words we would climb, jump and swing from tree to tree. And yes the conservationists would have our nuts on a platter if we had been caught.
But there was one jump that put an end to my jumping days for a considerable amount of time. There had been tree lopping going on at our place. A nice stack of tea tree branches were piled up in the back yard. With these being soft branches it made a great landing pad. I could run along the garage roof and leap over the end of the pool and land in the tree cuttings. I had done this for a few days and had two friends over one day after school. Only one of them jumped as well while the other made some excuse about not feeling well.
I lined myself up for the leap the century. I ran across the roof, launched myself into the air. I was Icarus flying to close to the sun. I landed. My ankle gave way with a CRACK. I felt the sickly feeling of pain sweep over my body.
How I stood up I don’t know. I was yelling my guts out like a stuck pig. Yelling at my friends to go and get my mother to take me to the hospital. Mum came out with a serious look on her face wanting to know what all the yelling was about. Next thing I know my two friends have laid me on the back seat of the car. Then I saw why I was in so much pain. When my leg was straight I could see the bottom of my foot. That’s when consciousness became an effort.
Mum drove me to the local public hospital. Once again wondering why she had to have a loose cannon for a son. Soon the pain became unbearable. It was hard to remain awake and alert. Mum parked the car and ran into the hospital. A couple of orderlies and a Doctor rushed out to the car and slapped me on a stretcher. I don’t remember much. I was given pain killers and drifted in and out of reality.
I was asked if I had eaten. About an hour ago I said. Well this put a spanner in the works. They would not administer an anaesthetic as I may vomit while under and choke to death. I thought if that happened I was in good hands but obviously not. So from 5pm til 10.30pm I lay on a bed with my twisted foot taped in a pillow. I recall two Doctors making comments like “tyring to fly were you” and “gee you did a good job there”. If I wasn’t doped up to the eyeballs I would have responded in some kind of way such as “Shut up and fix it you bastards”.
I was laid out on the operating table, had the needle placed into my arm and was asked to count backwards from 10. 10. 9, 8, 7……………………
The room was bright when I woke up. I went to roll over and couldn’t. My leg felt like it weighed a tonne. I panicked and tore off the bed sheets. “Shit….shit shit shit and double shit” was my first thought and my second and third. I had plaster from the tip of my toes to my hip. I didn’t know what to do. I was the only person in a ten bed ward. So I pressed my “Instant Nurse” button repeatedly until a nurse appeared saying” Oh you are awake how are you feeling” After lots of questions from me and the same amount of reassurance form the nurse the outcome was I had broken my ankle in three places.
After about 5 days of being alone in this huge ward the nurse gave me a wheelchair and said I can push myself next door into the other 10 bed ward and chat to the people in there. So I push myself along with the skill of a rank amateur. The first bed I roll up to has the guy lying there with the top bed sheet raised up by some kind of platform. He asked what happened and I told him. “I could never fly either” he said. I asked why he was in hospital. “Oh, I dropped an electric circular saw onto my thigh”
On hearing this I came close to spraying the contents of my stomach all over the floor. I replied with a line from The School Blatantly Obvious. “That must have hurt” and wheeled myself back to my bed, crawled in and decided I didn’t want to talk to other patients.
So my jumping days came to an end. My leg was in full plaster for nine weeks. I was on crutches for thirteen weeks and I limped for about a year before i could walk properly again. I will still jump from great heights but only if I have a parachute attached or there is water below…and plenty of it. Leave flying for the birds.