Quote:
Originally Posted by jellicentfan1
What happened to you? I am curious.
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Story time!
I was nine years old when my friend decided to have his birthday party (and oddly his birthday was the day after mine!). He picked what was probably the coolest theme at the time for nine year olds in 2001 (at least where I was from): a rock climbing party. Thankfully, down in the city of Rochester, we have an indoor rock climbing place, which has an assortment of walls of varying difficulties that are all belayed by the staff there to make sure everyone is safe while they (attempt) to get to the top of the walls.
However, if you've ever been to a fair or something of the variety, you've probably seen those portable rock climbing walls that are four-sided, have an attendant operating at the bottom of it, but the walls themselves are automatic in the sense that a person doesn't have to belay the climber. Of course, as a company that travels around the city to put up a wall at the fairs, they had one of those walls outside the main building. Of course, that was the wall everyone ventured to when they got bored of the walls inside.
When I finally got my turn to go up it, I was so excited. I was totally determined to get to the top of it. Unlike the walls inside, it wasn't nearly as tall (probably around twenty feet maximum), and was just straight up instead having some sort of incline to make the difficulty higher. So I kind of just stared at it and felt totally confident. It's been eleven years, so I couldn't give you an exact amount of time, but it felt like I just flew up the wall. When I reached the top, I rang the bell as hard as I could as I was pretty satisfied with how quickly I got up there.
Then it's all a blur. Next thing I knew I was lying on the concrete (Oh, did I mention that it was just on solid concrete with zero padding or mats on the ground? Yeah, that's kind of important!) and I had no idea how I got there. I could feel my body for the most part, but then I looked over to my right arm. Thankfully I was in shock, otherwise little nine year old me probably wouldn't have been able to handle the sight of the bone showing through my skin. From what I was told, a screw was loose in part of the carabiner (the clip that attaches the harness to the cable), which caused me to lose the connection between my harness and the cable that belays you.
Naturally, everyone was freaking out. My friend's parents were losing their minds. They couldn't believe something this serious could happen to me while I was under their care at my friends' birthday party. They instantly called 911 to get an ambulance for me. However, when they attempted to get in contact with my parents, they blanked. We lived on the same street, but they didn't know my house number. They had no idea any sort of cell phone information. For those who are wondering, shock is both a blessing and a curse. It sucks that you have to be forced to even enter it, but the lovely thing is that you are probably the calmest person in the entire situation. I quickly fed out all the information to his parents as well as the medical personnel when they arrived so they could get my parents to the hospital.
As a result of all this, I broke my humorous (aka your funny bone), which was the bone popping out of my skin, as well as my growth plate in my elbow. Thankfully modern medicine is a wonderful thing, and I've recovered completely, so that isn't any concern. Plus I got some money out of the deal from the following lawsuit (which you don't need to know any specifics about!).
You would think that I'd be scared of heights after all of this, but honestly they still don't really phase me. I'd love to go skydiving, bungee jumping, or anything of that variety. I will
definitely never go rock climbing of any sort ever, EVER again, but in general heights still don't scare me. I'm weird like that, don't ask me!