Ancientglen said..
Christmas Day 1978, I wasn't windsurfing, but I was out at Terrigal NSW in a tiny 2 foot surf at low tide with a lightweight, less than 6 foot long single fin surfboard. The surf was small and really hollow, so I started fooling around in it, jumping on and off the board. I should have known better! The fin hit a sandbar and the board stopped dead. I stepped off, raising my arms to balance myself, and the suddenly lightened board flipped up and caught me under my right armpit.
It winded me a bit, but I kept fooling around, then I started getting a 'stitch' in my right side. It got worse and worse, and wouldn't go away, so I got out of the water and walked home to get ready to go out for Christmas lunch with a workmate's family. (I was very single-divorced at this time) By the time Jenny came to pick me up I was almost unconscious with the pain in my side, so she took me straight to Gosford hospital ER.
The doctor took my shirt off and ran his fingers down my right side ribs...
"This one's broken, the one under it's broken in 2 places, the one under that in 3, the one under that is also broken in 2 places and the next one's broken too." Christmas lunch that day was a stale meat pie in the ER department while they strapped up my 5 smashed ribs and dosed me with horse-pill sized painkillers.
There is a good side to this story however... I had to go 'cold turkey' for 10 weeks, no surfing, no drinking, no partying, no misbehaving whatsoever, a dramatic change for me at the time, and a forced opportunity foe me to dry out. The first night I was allowed back out on the town, a mate took me to the Leagues Club Sunday night disco, and introduced a (very sober) me to a delightful young lady who's actually now been my wife for the last 33 years.
Best accident, and best Christmas present I ever had!
Cheers, Glen.
What's a "Disco"?
