Slippin' and Slidin'

We had a couple dustings of snow in the past week in these parts: barely enough to be worth mentioning, but nonetheless a reminder of things to come. Probably. NJ winters have little predictability. They range from balmy to blizzardy. There is likely to be ice and snow however. Possibly a lot. Public service announcements on the radio already are warning about the dangers of slipping and falling on ice. I’m well-stocked with salt, sand, and shovels in order to keep my walkways safe. I test-started my snow-blower. As for slipping and falling… well, I’m pretty sure I’ll do that anyway despite forewarnings. I do that every winter.

I’m not outstandingly klutzy but let’s say that Parkour won’t ever be my game. I don’t require ice to take a tumble. I don’t even need a cat between my feet. My worst fall from the perspective of onlookers was in my 20s when I tried to push a wheelbarrow full of bricks across a plank spanning a portion of an unfinished foundation; the plank turned and I joined a shower of bricks in an 8 foot (2.5 m) descent to concrete. Other workers came running assuming I was under the bricks. I wasn’t. Ego aside, I walked away without an idiomatic scratch. No one was more surprised than I, but such things happen. In 1943 a B-17 gunner named Alan Magee fell out of his bomber over France; he fell 22,000 ft (6700 m) without a parachute. He crashed through the roof of the St. Nazaire train station, which slowed his descent. He survived and spent the rest of the war in a German POW camp. He died in 2003.
 
Unfortunately, luck can run the other way too, especially when we are past our 20s and no longer bounce as well. Every year people die from tripping over their own feet at 0 altitude. According to the CDC 17,000 Americans die every year from slips, trips, and falls. 26% of those are on level surfaces. 3% happen getting out of bed, which I suppose is one argument not to do that. 800,000 are hospitalized from falls annually. Injuries not requiring hospitalization are in the millions. Falls are the leading cause of accidental injury for those over 65. Ice and sleet, of course, up the risk enormously. Icy stairs are exceptionally dangerous.
 
According to the CDC website, “One out of five falls causes a serious injury such as broken bones or a head injury.” This can’t be right. Five falls are an average winter month for me: all of them outside. Once again, I’m not klutzy in a general way. It’s just that there are very few level surfaces on my property. I keep the walkway (which is level) to the guest parking area (also level) shoveled and salted, but the bulk of the driveway from the road past the house all the way up to the barn is on an incline steep and steady enough that heating oil delivery trucks tend to lose traction about halfway up in icy conditions. (For this reason I keep a spare 15 gallons of fuel on hand to feed the furnaces overnight when this happens.) Shoveling, snow-blowing, and salting the driveway on foot (which I do myself) therefore involves a lot of slipping and sliding on slanted ice. I land on my posterior with some regularity. Taking the wheeled garbage bin down the driveway to the curb in winter may involve a whirly dance as we slide our way down. The lawn, too, is mostly a series of slopes. When the lawn is snow-covered, getting traction on it is a challenge. Nonetheless, no spill in 40 years has caused me more than a bruise, and rarely one of those.
 
Yet, while I accordingly doubt the “one out of five” stat, there is no doubt that a bad landing can cause serious harm, even on a cushion of snow from just a standing height. Not all of us bounce like Magee. I wouldn’t want to repeat my own stunt with the bricks either. I doubt I’d be as lucky twice. So, I’ll heed the PSAs and watch my step. I urge the reader to do the same.
 
 

Cold Blood (Lydia Pense vocals) – Watch Your Step