It was just an ordinary Monday night, as my friends and I were going to head to the skate park just like we did any other day. Skateboarding was my passion. I would skate to school, while at school, and after school everyday. Any time you would see me, my skateboard was under my feet. So as usual, when the sun set, I was to meet my friends at the skate park for a fun skate session. I arrived, said hello, and we began skating. I normally warmed up by cruising around the park to get the blood flowing. So after we were warmed up, my friend Corey suggested we play a game of SKATE. In a game of SKATE, one person does a trick, and the next person must do the exact same. It’s just like a game of HORSE in basketball. That’s when things took a turn for the worst. It was my turn to do the same trick that Corey had just done. He did a back Nose Grind on the ledge. A Nose Grind is where you put all of your weight onto your front foot so that your can keep the back truck off of the ledge. I thought to myself; I have done this trick so many times before, I got this. So I rolled down the bank setting up to do the trick. I popped onto the ledge and immediately something was wrong. I looked down and my front foot was on the ledge without my skateboard under it. I then fell backwards off of the ledge with my right arm fully extended right
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behind me. Big mistake. My right hand hit the ground first, and with all of my weight on my fully extended arm, my elbow just gave way. It all happened so fast. I quickly stood up in a world of pain. My friends hurried over wondering what had happened. They lifted up my right sleeve so they could see the damage. You should have seen the look on their faces. They described it as if my elbow had twisted around and moved up to were my bicep normally was. It was bad. I then immediately called my Dad and told him my situation. He was pissed off because it was just another trip to the hospital for him. I then had to sit in agonizing pain waiting for my Dad to arrive. Finally, he was there, and I struggled to get in the car without causing more pain. The hospital was only about 10 minutes away, but it was the longest ride of my life. I felt every little bump and crack in the road on the way there. It was late at night when we arrived at the hospital. It seemed as if all of the staff that were working there were totally unprepared. My Dad went in first and brought me a wheel chair out the car. I rolled in the doors of the hospital and the pain was just getting worse. I was in the most intense pain I have ever had in my life. The nurses gave me a dose of morphine to help with the pain. It did absolutely nothing. So I requested another dose of morphine. It still had little affect on assisting with the pain. The next step was to try and find a doctor who could help fix my elbow. Finally, they reached a doctor and he was now on his way over. In the mean time, they x-rayed my arm. It was horrible for me since I could do absolutely nothing but hold my arm in my lap. All that showed in the x-ray was that my elbow had been dislocated. We would later find out that it was not that simple. After about
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20 minutes, the doctor arrived and geared up. They laid me out on the table and injected some drug into my IV, which made me numb, but I didn’t lose consciousness. I had no idea what was going on as he twisted my arm back and forth to try to get it back in the socket. When I somewhat woke up and got my senses back together, the doctor told me that it was nothing but a dislocation and that it would be fine. So he sent me back home