I broke my leg in college. How? Why? It’s an interesting story. First, some context:
TAME IN HIGH SCHOOL
I didn’t party in high school. There were three factors:
- NERD – I was a nerd (and therefore hung out with other behaved, nerdy students).
- MOVED – My family moved to a new state in the middle of my high school years, so this interrupted whatever social inertia I had in motion.
- DISTANT – In my last couple of years of high school (in Illinois), we lived far away from the high school (it was in the next town) – so I had to bus to/from school and therefore I didn’t hang at school outside school hours, and didn’t socialize with other students.
So when I went away to college, I was ripe for having fun.
WILD IN COLLEGE
To make things extra bad, the university I went to (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) was very much a party place. There were multiple factors:
- DRUNK FRESHMEN – Even though the drinking age in Illinois was 21, the dozen bars on the edge of the campus would let you in if you were 18 (Champaign) or 19 (Urbana), and would serve you alcohol once you were inside. So the effective ‘bar drinking age’ at college was 18. (I’m confident/hopeful that this has tightened up since I went to school.)
- COMPETITION – These bars wanted your business, and so would have promotions and events to draw you in. One bar had a football event called ‘quart per quarter’ where, if you drank eight pints (a gallon) of beer in three hours (the duration of a football game), you got a t-shirt. (I got one.)
- GREEK SYSTEM – UIUC had the biggest fraternity/sorority system in the country. There were parties every week and, if you had connections, it was easy to know about and attend these parties. I lived in a dorm for two years, then an apartment – but still went to frat parties.
So it was common to drink (a lot) on weekends – plus late, some weekday evenings.
THE INCIDENT
So one drunkish weekend evening, I was wandering about on campus with one of my apartment roommates, John. There was a big building mid-campus called the Armory, which was shaped like a quonset hut (like a barrel on its side, cut in half horizontally). We always spent a lot of time at the Armory: it had a firing range, and an indoor track surrounding a playing field – where we used to play a lot of ultimate frisbee on weekend mornings, mostly to sweat and get past our hangovers. (For those of you in milder climates – indoor tracks and athletic fields are not uncommon.)
That evening, John and I decided to climb over the roof of the Armory – which is about 100 feet at its peak. Why did we do this? – who knows. To climb the roof, we had to wander up a floor or two (and climb out a window) – to where the curved roof began.
Climbing the curved roof was challenging, but doable. The roof was made of panels maybe eight feet tall. So we had to lift one of us to grab the top edge of the current panel, and then pull the other one up. The frame of each panel was sturdy and deep – so there was no worry with standing on that frame and progressing to the next.
We did a great job. We got to the top, then started descending down the other side. We were maybe 80% of the way through the climb (up, then down) – but then it started to rain. The rain was light, so it wasn’t obviously a concern – BUT, it did cause me to slip on the very last panel, catch my left foot in a rain gutter, and fall over – hanging from my left foot. Snap! John helped me get disengaged. But there I was – sitting on the flat roof in the rain, with a broken leg (both bones in my left calf).
Optimistic John tried to tell me that I was OK and should get up – but that wasn’t possible. He then left me, got the fire department, and they got me down with a big mechanical firetruck arm, and took me to the hospital.
TREATMENT
I remember being in the hospital (still slightly drunk?) and the doctor inserting a pin through my knee down the center of my shinbone to line the bone up to heal. I’m sure I was given anesthesia, but I remember him pounding the pin into my shinbone, and my whole body bouncing around on the table with each hammer blow.
I spent a week in the hospital (different era – no rush to boot you out). My sister came to visit me there – likely my parents, too. I got a visit from a policeman while in the hospital (because I was trespassing?) – but when he saw me lying there with my broken leg, his perspective was ‘well, you’ve suffered enough’. No penalty.
RECOVERY
I got sent home to my parent’s house for a couple weeks with splints on the sides of my leg, and the leg wrapped up. I guess this was to ensure the skin was healing well before they put on a cast. I think the shinbone poked through the skin where it broke, plus there was the knee entry point for the pin.
I ended up back down at school, with a cast on my leg for a couple months, and had to crutch to and from class. When I got my cast off, my leg was so skinny (like an arm) – but it didn’t take long for it to recover, and build muscle.
REFLECTION
Looking back, I was fortunate that I didn’t slip on a higher roof panel and fall farther – and also that my bone breaks were clean (midway between the knee and foot) so there was no joint damage, and the bones healed well. No lasting muscle damage.
The doctor who put my leg back together did a great job. As an adult, I’ve been able to run, hike, bicycle, play tennis, etc with zero impact from my broken leg. Surprising, but good. I have a lump in my shin where the bone healed, but no lasting after-effects. I still have the pin that held my shin together – it’s metal, a little more than a foot long, and as big around as a pencil. I also have a sizable scar on my knee from pin insertion/removal.
SADNESS
My former roommate John died recently. I didn’t stay connected with him post college, so I don’t know the full story. He was athletic (in college, we used to run ten miles every other day with another roommate), plus he was a year younger than me. He was a good guy – I’m sad for him (and his friends and family).