So how did I end up with a broken leg? Well, I was commuting to work and I had to change trains at Clapham Junction, as often happens there were delays (a landslip in the Westcote Park area was the apparent cause as it had been all week, the really odd thing I that I have it on good authority that the area is really rather flat). Anyway, the platform was crowded and the timetable boards were not functioning properly so we had no idea when the next train was coming in. One showed up and we let the half dozen or so people get off it and then we all tried to get on. I was quite near the front and managed to get on when some guy on board decided that he had to get off. He was in too much of a rush to ask us to get out of the way so he just pushed his way through. Of course, he shoved me and I lost my balance. I tried to put my right leg back down onto the platform to keep my balance but instead it went down between the train and the platform. As I fell I grabbed nto the back of his coat but he kep on walking off into the distance and down I went. My right leg, the one flayling in mid-air was fine, I was caught by a couple of people on the platform but not before I had heard my left leg crack as the pressure bent it in a direction it was not designed to go.
My language consisted mostly of “F’s”, with the occassional “I have broken my ankle”. I was moved back onto the train but I was partially out of the doors and some helpful commuters said, “Can you try putting some weight on it, we need to close the door so the train can leave?”, to which I responded with more “F’s” and my statement about broken bones. Now I am quite squeemish with anyones blood but I am especially squemish with my own and although I did not look straight at it I could see out of the corner of my eye that my foot was not facing in a normal direction.
I was carried off the train by a couple of burly guys, at least one of whom was a member of staff and a female passenger brought my bag. She then proceeded to tell the train staff that they should not have moved me until the ambulance had arrived. I waited what seemed like an age for the first aiders and they then called for an ambulance. In all it must have been about 30 minutes before the ambulance arrived, oh the joys of rush hour in London, however, they were fantastic and the laughing gas helped with the pain.
I was taken to the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital and to cut a long story short they diagnosed a broken fibia and tibia, which they repaired with some screws, a plate and a wire (can’t wait to go through the metal detector at an airport).
I will cover my hospital stay later on in this blog, meanwhile you can check out the hospital here:
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