Day 7d: The steps of DOOM!!!
Okay… remember one of the last lines from my latest England trip report:
But then… out of the darkness… comes a blood curdling scream!
We were sitting outside on John and Marianne’s patio, talking, drinking, eating grilled pie (!!!)… Kathy and Mel had gone inside and were in the living room. I went inside to get another beer when I heard Julian yell in a scream I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
Looking back, Kathy and I agreed that our first thoughts were that Sam (Julian and Jenny’s two-year-old son, who had been sleeping upstairs) had fallen out of the window and Julian discovered him… fortunately that wasn’t the case.
Unfortunately for Julian, in the absolute darkness around the corner of the house, he fell down *THESE STAIRS*:
The thing that (quite literally) saved his life was the fact that he ended up sliding/bouncing down the very hard and sharp stone steps on his butt. When we all came running around the corner, I completely expected Julian to be in a bleeding and horribly angled position at the bottom of the stairs… but lucky for him, he was in a relatively “normal” position at the bottom.
I made sure to tell everyone that Kathy, who’s a nurse, was in charge, as Julian wanted to sit up right away! She checked Julian’s vitals, etc., and we immediately called the emergency services. We couldn’t/wouldn’t move him until they arrived. So, he was in a very uncomfortable position and was getting cold laying on the stones at the bottom of the stairwell.
Since John and Marianne live out in the middle of the countryside, it took (literally) 45 minutes for the ambulance to arrive… when they did, they came down and checked Julian out… then we actually (to Kathy’s and my shock) stood Julian up and the EMT and I helped him *WALK UP THE STAIRS*.
He was in *substantial* pain, but could put weight on both of his legs, so a shattered pelvis, which is what we feared, seemed to be ruled out.
It was close to midnight by the time the ambulance finally started back to the hospital in Warwick. They took him to the hospital with Jenny, and Mark drove Marianne after them. John stayed at the house with us for the report, since Sam was still sleeping (thankfully!!) upstairs.
A few hours later, we got the call that Julian was being released (!!!!), so Mark and I drove to the hospital in John’s big comfortable Land Rover LR3 to give Julian the nicest ride home possible. We got there, loaded him up, and drove him and Jenny home.
To make a *very* long story shorter (too late!), it turns out he had broken his coccyx and severely bruised his gluteus maximus, along with several scrapes from the stones on the way down. He was *amazingly* lucky that nothing else happened…
John had a contractor out the next morning and we’ve since heard that a very nice and secure fence is completely around that stairwell.
It’s now Friday morning… our last day in England before returning home… and while we’re thankful that our friend is safe, we’re all totally exhausted from the previous night’s “adventure”. The next journal will cover what we did on our last day, our trip home, and our safe return to Round Rock.
Follow-up: Julian was off of work for 8 weeks recovering… he’s a lucky guy it wasn’t worse!!!
Ouch.
