Before The Fall

Paul and Peggi panorama iPhone shot by Duane Sherwood at Rich Serra show in Chelsea
Paul and Peggi panorama iPhone shot by Duane Sherwood at Rich Serra show in Chelsea

Duane asked me if I was going to write about this and I didn’t answer. I figured I would but I kind of thought I would have been fully recovered by now.

It was dark, exactly a week ago about this time of day and we were headed out of Chelsea and back to Brooklyn. We were crossing 8th Avenue and I was talking to Peggi. I had my hands in my pocket because it was cold and I was looking for the subway stop on the other corner when my right foot tripped over a curb, part of the meridian in the middle of the road. I went down quick. I think I broke my fall with my knee and my elbow but mostly it was a body slam to the concrete. It knocked the wind out me and I found myself gasping for breath for the duration of the next light. I shook it off and finished crossing the street but felt weak so we went in the coffee shop on the corner. I sat at a stool but felt like I was going to faint. Instead of doing that I laid down on the floor of the coffee shop.

Peggi went for water and I guess the workers called an ambulance. By the time they showed up I was fine. They checked my blood pressure, cracked a few jokes and I had to sign something that said I refused treatment. I guess I had a premonition that something like this would happen. The day before I was reminding Peggi how my Aunt Isabel fell in the city when she was down for my brother’s wedding. They got married in a restaurant on Morningside Heights at the top of a building on Columbia’s campus. She was probably about the same age I am now.

I still can’t roll over in bed, or laugh without shooting pain but it could have been a lot worse. I might need a helmet or something. Duane took this shot earlier in the day on his phone.

5 Comments

5 Replies to “Before The Fall”

  1. Probably only bruised. I did break some ribs years ago and I think that felt worse. Rode my bike right into an old man (probably my age now) who had stepped off the sidewalk right into my sliver of the road. My chest hit the knob between the handle bars and I was launched over the guy into the road. Doctor said there is nothing we can do for broken ribs.

  2. if it’s a broken rib you won’t be able to sleep on it for 6 months, it took me a couple weeks to realize the extent of the damage when i fell earlier this year, you’ll survive tho’

  3. Sounds like ribs, says Dr. Louise. I broke my arm coming of a moped in 2010 and later in the day realized my chest was hurting more than the arm. It hurt to breathe and laugh and sneeze also… turned out to be a fractured sternum –

    Not much you can do but take hot tubs, drink champage and be waited upon… anyway, that’s what I did. 🙂 We hope to provide entertainment shortly.

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