Thursday, April 23, 2009

Fallen Lady

Something happened yesterday on our way to the track I forgot to blog about.

As we were running up 16th on our way out to the track, we started to pass a lady on the sidewalk just before the Logan intersection. As Matt and I were about to pass the lady on the left she caught her toe on a crack in the sidewalk and went down face first right in front of us. She was an older heavy set lady in business clothes with a big purse and a notebook. She fell hard and just laid there face first sprawled on the sidewalk. Matt and I stopped to see if she was OK. We asked how she was and she didn't say anything. I thought of my co-worker Sandy who had fallen similarly before Christmas and ended up with a broken wrist and some cracked ribs.

I felt guilty because I thought maybe we had startled her as we came up from behind. As most of you know I'm a loud runner and sometimes when I come up behind people running they get a bit startled. After a few seconds she started moving and said she thought she was OK. I said I hope we didn't cause you to trip and she said no she hit something on the sidewalk. I pointed to the raised crack and said your foot caught on that. Just then another runner came up and said he'd tripped on the crack before also. I told the lady that among us we had probably hit every crack on the sidewalk which is a lot in that neighborhood.

We stayed with her for a couple of minutes till she was on her feet and helped gather her stuff. She had some pretty bad sidewalk burns on the palms of her hands and was shaken up but seemed OK. She thanked us several times for stopping. As we ran on up 16th Matt and I talked about how it happened in slow motion right in front of us and there was nothing either of us could do. I told him if you run up and down 16th enough times, eventually you will see it all.

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