Pole of Surprises

So I managed quite a feat on Friday the 11th: I fell off of a fireman's pole at a height of 2 meters (~6 feet). There are a few questions that naturally arise when I mention this fact:

• Where did you find a fireman's pole?
• Why were you on it?
• How the hell did you fall off of it?

These are all quite valid questions, and they were quite fun to explain to a Swiss ER doctor with a poor understanding of English. That aside, let's see if I can tackle it.

As you might have seen photos of going around, the Google Switzerland office has fireman's poles going between floors which they aptly labeled "Quick Connections". It's mostly a gimmick, but it adds some additional spice to the office and they do get used fairly often. So, there I was on the 5th floor of the building and I approach a decision point: do I take the stairs to my left, the elevators in front of me, or the Quick Connection to my right? Well, I haven't used the firepole in awhile, so why not -- it'd be fun, right?

So I hop on, wrap my legs around, grab the pole and start my downward journey. The first thing I notice is that my hands are getting really hot with friction and are beginning to blister. Then I notice that my legs aren't really helping me here -- I'm doing something incorrectly. Well, just a little bit further... I begin to see everything on the next floor, my hands are really killing me now, and I misjudged the distance by at least a meter. My hands let go, and down I go. I land standing up onto a cushion they have at the bottom that's about 8 inches high.

*Sn-n-n-n-aapp!* I go down in a heap, falling backwards off of the cushion, my feel still on top of it. Naturally, I let off a rather loud explicative and grab the attention of half of the floor. You see, it turns out tall soft cushions are not so helpful for falls of more than a few feet. Instead, they pretty much ensure that your ankles won't be stable and will twist. Fun!

In any case, they sent me off to an emergency room, they took some xrays, and put me in a half-cast along the back of my calf and sent me home with crutches for the weekend. Monday comes, and I get a C.T. scan. Tuesday, I finally meet the doctor to find out what the story is: it is fractured (near the base of the talus), but it's not in the joint and it's not very serious. He removes the cast, and tells me to only put about half-weight on it for a few weeks and progress from there. See you in 6 weeks, bye!

So, that's about it. I've a lovely hematoma to grace my foot now, and being the curious person that I am, I've been watching it slowly progress. You can watch with me here:

Broken Ankle