Accidents
Accidents will happen, as Elvis Costello astutely pointed out. Furthermore they often occur in the most innocuous of fashions, as I shall now tell. Myself and Mrs P were over our local park today with our two and a half year old grandson Oscar. It is located directly behind our home and has a small children’s play area as well as various adult exercise equipment. One of these items is a low, wooden ramp whose highest end is no more than eighteen inches off the ground. Oscar likes to climb on this, run to the end and jump. Naturally, he did this today when we visited. Mrs P then followed suit (at his request) and stepped off onto the soft, child safe surface. Her right knee gave way and she fell over. Despite the short distance and the soft surface, the fall was sufficient to injure her knee, as there was an audible crack. She subsequently could get up on her own and I had to assist her so she could sit on the aforementioned ramp.
Due to the swelling and the fact that she couldn’t put any weight on her right leg, I had to go to my parents house which is nearby and fetch my late mother’s wheelchair. This proved invaluable. To cut a long story short, we went to the Urgent Care Centre at our local hospital. It is not a full A&E but this is exactly the sort of injury that they deal with. The knee was x-rayed and found to have no bone injuries. However, due to the obvious damage to the soft tissue, Mrs P has been referred to the fracture clinic. In the meantime, her entire right leg from the top of the thigh to the ankle is in a splint. She cannot put weight on it and the pain is intense, even when sitting or lying down. As she cannot move, she requires assistance with visits to the toilet. At present she is taking paracetamol for pain relief but it is proving insufficient. I shall call our local GP tomorrow to see if something more robust can be prescribed. This matter is complicated by Mrs P’s heart condition.
When I reflect on this and other accidents that have befallen my family and friends over the years, I am constantly surprised by their mundane and banal nature. My mother slipped over in the bathroom in November 2019 and broke her upper right arm. She was reaching for a towel to dry her hands. The break was so bad that it had to be pinned. My father hit himself in the face with a spanner while trying to unscrew a particularly difficult engine bolt, resulting in him knocking out a tooth. This was in the seventies when tinkering with your car was an quintessential weekend ritual in suburbia. I sprained my ankle in 2002, when stepping off the curb in Great Newport Street. My foot went black within minutes and I was out of action for at least five days. All of these minor incidents seem to have disproportionate outcomes or long term aftereffects that you wouldn’t immediately associate with such low key beginnings.
Another consideration that springs to mind, is how modern homes and public spaces are far from accommodating if you are not 100% able. Something that the disabled encounter everyday. At present, Mrs P is using a wheelchair for practical reasons. When we were leaving the hospital today, the paving stones outside were in a shocking state making wheelchair use uncomfortable and dangerous. Furthermore, at home when travelling from her bed to the bathroom, the standard doorways in the UK can barely accommodate the width of a wheelchair. We are both grateful that we live in a bungalow and do not have any stairs to navigate. Then there is the issue of care, which often follows in the aftermath of an accident. Both I and Mrs P are retired so we don’t have to worry about taking time off work to look after someone. Not everyone is in such a position or has a partner or family available to help, to begin with.
It would appear that the rule of thumb associated with these sorts of accidents is that they can occur anywhere and at any time. On a personal note I feel that they often go hand-in-hand with the mantra “no good deed goes unpunished”, because such accidents frequently stem from trying to help someone else or doing some kind of favour for another. In a curious validation of this speculation about the banality of accidents, while Mrs P was waiting to be seen in the Urgent Care Centre, one of our neighbours arrived with a cut thumb that required stitches. He sustained his injury as he was ringing his son’s front door. A loose tile caused him to slip and fall into a flower pot. To add insult to injury, the entire incident was caught on his son’s CCTV which overlooks the drive. All of which makes me think there may be something in M.R. James’ short story “The Malice of Inanimate Objects”.
