How I broke my collar bone in religion class
A friend's son recently broke his collar bone. In the thread where everyone was wishing her and her son well I mentioned having broken my collar bone in a high school religion class. Another person responded by saying it was a story she had to hear. Thinking I'd just post a link to a writeup of the event I learned that I didn't seem to have a writeup in either of my blogs or in my e-mail!
I can't believe I never wrote about this!
This went down during my Freshman year of high school. I was attending Lutheran High School Westland. I went there for two years. Despite having been raised Protestant, I refer to this time as my two years in purgatory.
The religion class in question was a joke. The first day of class the teacher had passed out what were basically Sunday School workbooks consisting of "fill in the blank" questions about sections of the Bible. He had us write our names on EVERY page of the paperback workbook and then cut all the pages out with an Exacto Knife(tm). (Bright bulb that one.) Once this was done we taped the binding back together and stuck all the signed pages into the folder. He then collected them. We weren't to be trusted with them.
Throughout the year, the teacher would take the appropriate page out of each book and pass them back to us so we could fill them out. At the end of the year, he had a stack of covers containing a handful of pages each.
That's where the contest came in. He wanted to have a "Slam Dunk" contest for 10 extra credit points. This was his third or fourth year teaching the class and he'd apparently done this every year. The desks were arranged into a Giant "U" and trash can from the cafeteria was put on a desk at the front of the room. We each took turns running up and slam dunking our sad cover in the most creative way we could.
Gym class had just finished covering somersaults and shoulder rolls and I decided to incorporate a fake trip and a shoulder roll into my slam dunk. I did NOT take into account the difference between the pads laid out in gym class and a linoleum floor laid out over slab concrete. The "fake" trip dind't look like a trip at all. I did the roll, came up and put the sad remnants of the workbook in the trash can. I then returned to my desk, feeling shaken and nauseous.
After a few minutes I was sent to the principal's office, having turned gray. A friend collected my books for me.
I was laid out on a couch in the vice principal's office while my parents were called. My girlfriend heard I was hurt and ran to the room. She later told me she'd been afraid my neck was broken when she saw me.
My Dad eventuality arrived and took me straight to the nearest emergency room. There I was X-Rayed and diagnosed with a a broken clavicle, AKA the collar bone. They slapped a figure 8 brace on me to hold things in place and sent me home. A few days later I learned that they'd put the brace on upside down. This accounted for the fact that the padding was caught up in the brace, while the nylon webbing was cutting into my skin.
There were only a couple of weeks left before the end of the school year. I was naturally excused from gym class and got a whopping 30 extra credit points for my injury instead of the normal max of 10. One of the school's wanna-be bullies approached me while i was taking a leak in the restroom. There he threatened to hit me in the broken bone. I'd calmly replied that "I'm on so many pain killers I wouldn't feel a thing, but I WOULD be able to sue you and your parents for every penny of my medical expenses, punitive damages 'pain and suffering.' If you WANT your parents to sell their house so mine can buy a new one, go ahead and hit me."
He did not hit me.
To this day I occasionally get some pain in my collar bone when the weather changes. Oddly, the pain is not in the bone that broke, but in the one that bore all the weight while I was healing.
I can't believe I never wrote about this!
This went down during my Freshman year of high school. I was attending Lutheran High School Westland. I went there for two years. Despite having been raised Protestant, I refer to this time as my two years in purgatory.
The religion class in question was a joke. The first day of class the teacher had passed out what were basically Sunday School workbooks consisting of "fill in the blank" questions about sections of the Bible. He had us write our names on EVERY page of the paperback workbook and then cut all the pages out with an Exacto Knife(tm). (Bright bulb that one.) Once this was done we taped the binding back together and stuck all the signed pages into the folder. He then collected them. We weren't to be trusted with them.
Throughout the year, the teacher would take the appropriate page out of each book and pass them back to us so we could fill them out. At the end of the year, he had a stack of covers containing a handful of pages each.
That's where the contest came in. He wanted to have a "Slam Dunk" contest for 10 extra credit points. This was his third or fourth year teaching the class and he'd apparently done this every year. The desks were arranged into a Giant "U" and trash can from the cafeteria was put on a desk at the front of the room. We each took turns running up and slam dunking our sad cover in the most creative way we could.
Gym class had just finished covering somersaults and shoulder rolls and I decided to incorporate a fake trip and a shoulder roll into my slam dunk. I did NOT take into account the difference between the pads laid out in gym class and a linoleum floor laid out over slab concrete. The "fake" trip dind't look like a trip at all. I did the roll, came up and put the sad remnants of the workbook in the trash can. I then returned to my desk, feeling shaken and nauseous.
After a few minutes I was sent to the principal's office, having turned gray. A friend collected my books for me.
I was laid out on a couch in the vice principal's office while my parents were called. My girlfriend heard I was hurt and ran to the room. She later told me she'd been afraid my neck was broken when she saw me.
My Dad eventuality arrived and took me straight to the nearest emergency room. There I was X-Rayed and diagnosed with a a broken clavicle, AKA the collar bone. They slapped a figure 8 brace on me to hold things in place and sent me home. A few days later I learned that they'd put the brace on upside down. This accounted for the fact that the padding was caught up in the brace, while the nylon webbing was cutting into my skin.
There were only a couple of weeks left before the end of the school year. I was naturally excused from gym class and got a whopping 30 extra credit points for my injury instead of the normal max of 10. One of the school's wanna-be bullies approached me while i was taking a leak in the restroom. There he threatened to hit me in the broken bone. I'd calmly replied that "I'm on so many pain killers I wouldn't feel a thing, but I WOULD be able to sue you and your parents for every penny of my medical expenses, punitive damages 'pain and suffering.' If you WANT your parents to sell their house so mine can buy a new one, go ahead and hit me."
He did not hit me.
To this day I occasionally get some pain in my collar bone when the weather changes. Oddly, the pain is not in the bone that broke, but in the one that bore all the weight while I was healing.