Wednesday, February 18, 2009

An accident waiting to happen

As most of you know, I live in a 55+ community for 7 months of the year. The average age here I would estimate, is about 75. I'm by far the youngest person in this park. The oldest is 95 and he's my sweetie. I shall blog about him another time.

As a lot of you also know, I've been working very hard on the eating and exercise part of my life. I've started going to our gym here several days a week. We've got 2 treadmills, an elliptical, a stationary bike, and all the weight resistance machines you'd want to use. I just use the treadmill and the elliptical usually.

I was in the gym yesterday using Clyde. That is the treadmill I use. The elliptical is Bonnie, an evil pair to be sure. You are never in the gym alone which is sometimes a shame as I'd love to sing to my music. There was another couple in there yesterday. She'd had her knee replaced and was trying to build it stronger, I'm not sure what he was doing. That's when the accident happened. I just knew with all these old people here that one day there would be trouble in the gym. There really should be a phone in there just in case 911 needs to be dialed. In fact, I think from now on I'll make sure to take my cell phone with me. It was nearly needed yesterday for sure.

I had just finished up my hour on Clyde. I was getting off when the stumble began. I was helpless as Clyde was stumbled over and the other treadmill was crashed into. I could picture the body laying there with blood pouring forth from a severe head wound. There was nothing I could do. The old fat broad was going down, and she was going down hard. Hard and fast.

I flailed about to no avail. My left arm crashed into Clyde and I thought it was broken. My feet were all tangled up by now, I fell off Clyde and my right arm bashed into the other treadmill. I was trying not to go down and hit my head. I succeeded, just barely! I managed to upright myself, and in turning around, I caught my foot under Clyde and down I went....again. This time I was on my ass on the floor. Yep, count 'em up, I was down for the count. My legs were wobbly and jell-o like from my 3.5 mile walk and I just couldn't control my limbs! The lady with the replaced knee just sat there staring. She couldn't help. Her husband had NO idea what to do. I was flopping around like a fish on the shore until I finally hit the floor. My arm was already turning blue. I just looked at them and said 'leave it to me to wait until AFTER my workout to fall off!'

My arms hurt more today. They're not as purple as I thought they'd be. Thank God it's my one day off from exercise. I shall return to the gym tomorrow.

I'll have my cell phone with me.

7 comments:

Silverback said...

And yet none of those from 75 to 95 have ever fallen off a treadmill !
You're just not safe to be let out on your own.

Take the cell phone by all means - just remember to initiate the call before you start exercising and leave the line open.

Luanne said...

I'm so sorry about your little mishap, but so happy you didn't get hurt any worse than you did.
Hope you heal quickly.

CLS said...

OK - now you need one of the communicator that Mary and I use when we motorcycle - you plug your MP3 player, your cell phone, your walkie talkie and - if needed - your GPS into it - turn it on and you are good to go (of course on the motorcycle we have a tank bag to put it all in - weighs about 5 pounds fully set up!) AND, now that you can communicate with other Verizon peeps --- we're only a button away !!!

Carlos said...

shit...hope you are ok. only ego bruised!

Daphne said...

I'm glad that it wasn't worse than it was and hope the bruises get better quickly!

~ugly girl with a beautiful heart~ said...

Oi Vey! Sounds like my kinda fall. Never graceful and delicate lol.

Thanks for checking out my blog and commenting on my tatts! Yeah they were in a very very hurty place! I had turned into a trucker and was about to start swinging when my artist hit those few special spots! I'll be getting more though!

You should get more tatts! Who cares what it looks like when you get old? It's your body, your canvas, beautify it the way YOU want to!

Anonymous said...

Falling off a treadmill has been my own fear as I'm partial to using them as well. When I first started I found them quite scary. Glad nothing was broken.

Like they say - you have to get 'back in the saddle' otherwise it will put you off, so do go back, but go slowly. Little and often is the best way.