Finally back training after a luckily minor injury last month. long story short, I fell off a 1st floor roof cleaning a gutter after a storm clogged the drain. x-rays: compressed #4-5 disk in my back and cracked a rib.

could've been worse...but it also could've been better if I didn't try to save time by bypassing doing the job properly with a ladder. No. instead I had to jump onto the first floor roof from the second floor deck, then walk up to the gutter, bend over while twisting and hand-scoop the tree, leaf and plant sludge. Then throwing the gunk down careful not to pelt the dog or the cat with it. The dog's look should have been a warning sign - she looked up at me as if to say: "WTF? Dude. Dude, use a ladder." The cat, as always, didn't give a shiit since she wasn't affected personally by me being on the roof.


Not sure what happened next - it was like my body suddenly realized it was 40. I felt an electric shock up my spine and my balance gave out. landed on my side-back - a good 9ft drop. next thing I saw was the dog looking at me saying: "told you." The cat looking with judgemental cold eyes saying: "Thats not how *I* would've landed." or sortof like an instructor saying "you landed wrong....do it again."

I did laugh for a second, laying in a garden of hot pepper plants and I wondered if it was the jalapino's that saved me. Limped inside and I didn't feel like moving. I found the thing that calmed the pain best was watching episodes of 'jackass' on MTV. Don't know, but seeing people do dumber things had a soothing effect for some reason.


Lesson #736b: stay out of the gutter...it could take away from training.

Glad you are ok and back to training,lol. Funny story!!

Definitely good, all-around advice...and something I should heed a bit more.

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stay out of the gutter...it could take away from training.

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I found out that the gutters are easier to clean on the ground the hard way (rode one from the roof to the ground once)... so I'm up on this drill. They make TOOLS for doing that gutter cleaning thing if you can reach them from the ground. I spent a ton of money and got gutters that don't need cleaning because I realized that I couldn't dance on the roof any more.

Sorry to hear you have L4 and L5 problems now... part of my hip problems translate to that area of the spine as well. You need to be kind to your back. When it hurts, you can't do anything but watch... and even that hurts.

My time out of the dojo caused my problem, but it's coming back around to being usable again, so I'm improving... but it isn't fun having hip and back problems. I'm sure the cracked rib makes deep breaths a lot of fun too... I've had a dozen or so of those over the years when I was doing a lot of contact work, and there's just no way to get comfortable with them.

Lesson #736b hurts like a mother...

My sincere sympathy...

Did you forget to tuck and roll...???

Eyrie, Eyrie...
from 8 or 9 feet, you don't tuck and roll... you hang on and scream all the way down... hoping above hope that you don't hit anything sharp or "large" that will do damage.

I might have a lot of experience, but I don't have a technique for a 9 foot high breakfall. I must have missed class that day... Lesson #737a?

Ed

Dang, glad to hear your OK.

That's cats for you---and don't get me wrong, I love cats, I just can't eat a whole one all by myself.

Glad your Ok.

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I must disagree. I know people who have been thrown from motorcycles, cars, and military vehicles

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And I must disagree with your disagreement. In all the examples you sight there is forward momentum as well as downward, which would allow someone to roll forward.

In this case, or any case of a direct fall, there is no forward momentem to roll out with, plus you don't control the falling position. I believe the technical term for this landing is splat.

I fell off a ladder once and landed on the edge of a pool, shattered my arm, ouch.

Funny story, glad it had a happy ending and you are OK (mostly)