At the moment, I’m moving very slowly with a limp and occasionally emitting a whimper of pain. It’s all my own fault.
The sequence of events was set in motion about six weeks ago when Martin decided that he’d like to throw open access to the garden to members of the public. He’s a keen gardener, and very proud of what he’s achieved in the garden here in just over a year. So he joined Groei & Bloei, the Dutch association of amateur gardeners; the local chairman came to inpsect the garden, and gave Martin the go-ahead to open the garden. Martin picked next weekend as the date, and thus the garden will be open to the public next Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
Of course, Martin wants the garden to look its best, so we’ve both been working hard to get it ready. My tasks are generally mowing and hedge trimming. This last week I trimmed all the box hedges and yesterday I started on the hornbeam hedge. This is a tall hedge, and requires me to use a ladder.
You can see where this is going, can’t you?
I’ve got one of those multi-purpose aluminium ladders that can be locked into a variety of shapes. I had it in the form of a raised platform, with a plank of wood laid across the rungs to form the platform. Standing on it, I could tackle the top of the hedge, using the electric hedgetrimmer.
Now, I’ve always understood the elementary physics of fulcrums and levers, and I knew that it was important to have the plank of wood laid carefully across the rungs. The ends of the plank, in particular, had to be resting on rungs, otherwise the plank would tip up if I trod on the end section. I knew this. And yet, about halfway through cutting the top of the hedge, I moved to the end of the plank and suddenly had a very bad feeling.
I looked down, and saw the the end of the plank was no longer resting on a rung. My right foot was standing on the ladder frame. However, my left foot was standing on the end of the plank that was now free to tilt downward through the ladder, which is precisely what it was doing. Everything progressed in slow motion. I remember thinking that I was still holding the hedgetrimmer, and that had to be jettisoned in as safe a manner as possible, and that I was, in all probability, about to experience for the very first time, what a broken leg would feel like.
Fortunately, elementary phsyics saved the day once again. Since the heavy wooden plank was now falling through the rungs of the ladder, all that was left was the weight of the aluminium ladder itself. I was now falling face down off one end of the platform, with my left leg caught between two rungs on the top of the platform. My weight, and my trajectory, caused the whole platform to lift and pivot around the legs of the ladder at the end that I was falling from. Had that pivot not occurred, there would have been a very nasty snapping of both my tibia and fibula.
I lay there for a few moments (going "ow-ow-ow-ow", "shit!" and variations on that theme) before I thought that I probably should check to see if I had broken my leg. Fortunately, I hadn’t, although there was a small gash where the flesh had got trapped between the tibia and the ladder rung. However, now I have a painful leg and currently reduced to hobbling around. The rest of the hedge will have to wait.
What really makes me feel stupid is that I’ve always known this accident could potentially happen. I’ve spent hours standing on the plank on the ladder platform. All it took was one momentary lapse of concentration, and the laws of physics kicked in. However, it could have been worse.
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