How I Broke My First Bone

One time back in 2001 I decided to go snowboarding with Jason Reiter. Prior to that, besides backyard snowboarding, I had only been snowboarding on a resort once.

Some extended family of mine own a small ski resort in Illinois (Snow Star). Every year the resort would be closed on Christmas Day, however, they'd invite a bunch of family and close friends out for a Christmas potluck and day of skiing/snowboarding/sledding. So needless to say, I got pretty decent at skiing as a kid. Then I tried snowboarding one year; the resort was pretty empty so I had plenty of room to learn. Regardless, I fell a lot, my butt hurt, my head hurt, etc - That was the only time I had gone prior to the invitation to go with Jason.

So we headed up to Sundown Mountain in Dubuque, IA. I was a bit nervous because I had this crappy pink old school Burton Board and there were a ton of people there. However, I finally sucked it up and we slowly made our way down the hill. I made it down pretty decent twice - actually I fell quite a bit, but I made it down at least. The trouble came about on our third run. I started coming down Turkey Ridge by the North Lodge when this skier cut me off. I didn't really know how carve out and correct myself so I just went down backwards and tried to catch myself with my left hand, then *snap* my arm broke. I yelled down to Jason that I broke my arm, he yelled back, "no you didn't, you probably just sprained it!" Then he asked if I could snowboard down to him or if he had to take his board off and walk back up - he had to walk back up. So my arm started to get really cold, I tried pulling my sleeve back to find that my arm was now zig-zagged right above where my watch was. Apparently what happened was, when I went down the watch (the Fossil Brain - a huge watch) got pulled tight as my arm stretched. And obviously my bone was not as strong as the metal watch.

So we walked up the hill into the lodge looking for help; at this time I was mildly freaking out because I had just broken my first bone. "I broke my arm, where do I go?" etc. For some reason people had no idea where the first aid building was - but after about 25 minutes we got there. They took my coat off, splinted my arm with a magazine and sent me to the dubuque hospital. I was freaking out even more because my arm had gone completely cold. Jason had to be annoyed with me by this point. Finally we got to the hospital, I called my mom, we figured out insurance stuff and they put me in this emergency room that was split by a curtain. On the other side of the curtain was a kid - probably 11 years old. He also broke his arm, only he was too young to get the drugs that I was about to get. The doctor seriously had to set his arm without any medication. That kid screamed and cried so much, I felt really bad, but at the same time, I was pretty happy that I would be getting drugs that would prevent such pain.

Eventually a nurse came in and gave me a shot in the arm. I've had plenty of shots before, but this felt like I would imagine heroin to feel. She shot it in and I could feel it go out through all the veins in my arm and up to my chest. I remember saying something to Jason about it feeling like spiders crawling through my veins - it ruled. Don't do heroin kids!

Shortly after the shot I sort of just started passing out. Jason told me that I woke up a lot asking him if he was ok... Like, wtf, he's just sitting in a chair while I'm laid up in a bed with a broken arm, of course he's alright. Drugs do funny things to you. So yeah, I passed out some more and finally the doctor came in and woke me up. I remember this part pretty clearly. He said, "Alright Derek, I'm Dr. whatever, and I'm going to set your arm back into place now." "OK" "You might feel a little pressure in your arm, ready?" *SNAP* He popped my arm into place, I giggled, and then passed back out again - didn't feel a thing.

After that, he put my arm in a splint, I got wheeled out to the car, and Jason drove us back to Mount Vernon. The ride is like 45 minutes to an hour - seemed like 5 minutes.

So yeah, that's how I broke my first bone. I ended up wearing that splint for a month with no cast. Then I got a forearm cast for like 2 weeks and was left with a tiny, tiny, weak arm.

Sorry I wasted your day of snowboarding, Jason; we still need to go again to make that up.