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So yesterday was Sunday. As such my shift started at 5am. Well, I slept through my alarm. (Totally my fault. I was up too late the night before.)
I wake up at 7:15, curse a bunch of times, and go to take a shower. Oh, wait, the water heater's pilot light's gone out AGAIN, so I have to make do with a cold shower. On the plus side, it helped wake me up the rest of the way.
I grab my bag, grab my keys and jacket, and look out the front door at the thick layer of frost all over my car's windows. Muffling more curses, I head outside, and at the foot of the driveway... I encounter black ice.
See, there's a gutter in front of our house, empties into a pipe that runs under our front lawn and comes out near the foot of the driveway. The run-off from that had frozen. I didn't see it, and next thing I know, I've lost my balance. I take three more staggering steps before I realize I'm gonna fall forward. Too far away from my car to use its hood to break my fall, so I aim for a small patch of semi-melted snow and throw out my arm to break my fall.
I pick myself up and see a big cut on my wrist, at the bend, and my arm really hurts. I'm moaning in pain to myself as I try to pry my car door open, thinking the cut's not that bad, until I see it's deeper than I thought. Then I look down my coat's sleeve and see more cuts on my forearm, bleeding pretty well. So I trudge back inside, go to the bathroom, and use soap and cold water to clean the cuts (and I find another one on my elbow) as best I could, and slap some wide band-aids over all and sundry.
Then I come back outside, turn on my car, crank the defrost up to full, and then, using mostly my left hand and arm (since I'm trying to keep my right arm as immobile as possible so as not to let more blood flow into it), scrape the frost off. Drive to work (grab breakfast at BK), and head inside. I explain to the managers I see that I overslept, had to take a cold shower due to no hot water, "and then this happened," and show my arm. They're all immediately worried, but I assure them I'm okay.
I buy a first aid kit and head into the breakroom, where I plan to put some gauze over the wrist injury. As I'm getting ready to do this, our Verizon FiOS guy walks in, having heard about it. He's a firefighter, and trained in first aid, so he helps me out. Puts antibacterial ointment on everything (the forearm cuts have already stopped bleeding by this point), a band-aid over the elbow wound, and then wraps the gauze around my wrist. So he really helped me out.
I then clock in, grab my front-door LP stuff, and go about the rest of my day. Made for a good brief conversation starter when our regulars asked "So how are you doing?" I hold up my arm and abbreviate the story to "Slipped on some ice outside my house."
Then, to top it off, CR was late coming in. Though he wasn't "late," since he'd been asked before coming in to stop by our Woodbridge store to pick up something. I told him, "It's not a problem, compared to my morning." Give him the synopsis (late, cold shower, arm), he winces in genuine sympathy. I then clock out, change the band-aid on my elbow, and head home.
I'm honestly lucky I didn't break my wrist. I suffered no other injuries from my fall. My coat absorbed a lot of damage (only damage to the coat? a small hole in the outer layer above where my wrist was), and the snow I landed my wrist in probably helped soften the impact. I'll be okay (the cuts have all stopped bleeding, though the elbow and wrist injuries are still raw-looking enough that I've put a band-aid and fresh gauze around both), and I have a good cautionary tale about the dangers of black ice.
I wake up at 7:15, curse a bunch of times, and go to take a shower. Oh, wait, the water heater's pilot light's gone out AGAIN, so I have to make do with a cold shower. On the plus side, it helped wake me up the rest of the way.
I grab my bag, grab my keys and jacket, and look out the front door at the thick layer of frost all over my car's windows. Muffling more curses, I head outside, and at the foot of the driveway... I encounter black ice.
See, there's a gutter in front of our house, empties into a pipe that runs under our front lawn and comes out near the foot of the driveway. The run-off from that had frozen. I didn't see it, and next thing I know, I've lost my balance. I take three more staggering steps before I realize I'm gonna fall forward. Too far away from my car to use its hood to break my fall, so I aim for a small patch of semi-melted snow and throw out my arm to break my fall.
I pick myself up and see a big cut on my wrist, at the bend, and my arm really hurts. I'm moaning in pain to myself as I try to pry my car door open, thinking the cut's not that bad, until I see it's deeper than I thought. Then I look down my coat's sleeve and see more cuts on my forearm, bleeding pretty well. So I trudge back inside, go to the bathroom, and use soap and cold water to clean the cuts (and I find another one on my elbow) as best I could, and slap some wide band-aids over all and sundry.
Then I come back outside, turn on my car, crank the defrost up to full, and then, using mostly my left hand and arm (since I'm trying to keep my right arm as immobile as possible so as not to let more blood flow into it), scrape the frost off. Drive to work (grab breakfast at BK), and head inside. I explain to the managers I see that I overslept, had to take a cold shower due to no hot water, "and then this happened," and show my arm. They're all immediately worried, but I assure them I'm okay.
I buy a first aid kit and head into the breakroom, where I plan to put some gauze over the wrist injury. As I'm getting ready to do this, our Verizon FiOS guy walks in, having heard about it. He's a firefighter, and trained in first aid, so he helps me out. Puts antibacterial ointment on everything (the forearm cuts have already stopped bleeding by this point), a band-aid over the elbow wound, and then wraps the gauze around my wrist. So he really helped me out.
I then clock in, grab my front-door LP stuff, and go about the rest of my day. Made for a good brief conversation starter when our regulars asked "So how are you doing?" I hold up my arm and abbreviate the story to "Slipped on some ice outside my house."
Then, to top it off, CR was late coming in. Though he wasn't "late," since he'd been asked before coming in to stop by our Woodbridge store to pick up something. I told him, "It's not a problem, compared to my morning." Give him the synopsis (late, cold shower, arm), he winces in genuine sympathy. I then clock out, change the band-aid on my elbow, and head home.
I'm honestly lucky I didn't break my wrist. I suffered no other injuries from my fall. My coat absorbed a lot of damage (only damage to the coat? a small hole in the outer layer above where my wrist was), and the snow I landed my wrist in probably helped soften the impact. I'll be okay (the cuts have all stopped bleeding, though the elbow and wrist injuries are still raw-looking enough that I've put a band-aid and fresh gauze around both), and I have a good cautionary tale about the dangers of black ice.
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