So It was No Big Deal

Well I am known to have weird injuries. Usually for stupid reasons, and almost always just bad enough to kill, but just superficial enough to not need to go to the hospital. But today trumps them all.

But to rewind: this morning we didn’t have to be at Noah’s until 9:15. It was so nice. I got to sleep in until 8. Then we did a couple lessons, and we only went down the river once. We did one more lesson after that, and then we had dinner. At dinner, I sat next to Shawn who mentioned the Hot Springs. Now today was cold and rainy all day, plus we were wet from the river, so the Hot Springs, which is a couple different naturally heated pools (between 90˚F and 105˚F water), sounded amazing. I debated in my mind, because it takes so much energy to change my clothes. But I decided to go. And that’s where the incident occurred.

I was climbing out of the 102˚F to walk to the 90˚F pool because I was ridiculously hot. Well, I pushed off the bottom and pushed up onto my arms, just like I usually do. I put my foot up on the side, just like I usually do. But this time, because the side was so wet, my foot slipped and I nailed my shin, like I have done many times before. So I push off my shin, hop up, act like nothing happened, and keep walking over to the cooler pool. However, I look down and see blood pouring out of my leg, covering my foot. I think to myself, “That is bad news – that is not normal.” So I casually cover over the wound and walk over to sit down. But when I uncover my hand, I glance down and see my bone. Yeah, no big deal. Just my bone. There was about a quarter of an inch puncture wound, and when I moved it around, I could see my sinews, fibers, and tibia. Surprisingly, it did not hurt that badly. Only the giant goose-egg above the puncture wound hurt, and not even that badly. Thankfully, almost all of the people I was with were Wilderness Advanced First Aid certified, and a couple of them were even EMT’s. So one or two of the guys assessed the scene, covered it over, and applied pressure. Praise the Lord Jeff was there, so he called my dad and together they decided that I needed to go to the ER. So that’s where I am headed now – in the back of Shawn’s car, with him and Jeff, on the way to the ER. I will update after. Maybe even during. We’ll see.

On a scale of 1 to getting hit by a semi, I’m at about a puncture wound exposing the bone. So hopefully they have some pain killers for me.

Ok, two stitches later, I am home. It was so fun. I watched the whole thing. It was so cool! And Jeff and Shawn are angels and came with me and helped so much.

Story over.