Falling. Friday 19 April 2019 | by Christopher Gillett | Oct, 2025
Friday 19 April 2019
I wrote this after returning home in April 2019. I’ve held off posting it for several years, but now seems like a time to share. A lot has changed since I wrote this, that’s a subject for a different story.
It’s a long long post people. I wrote this as much for myself as for anybody who might read this. Consider this word salad my personal therapy…
We were vacationing on Folly Beach, SC. The kids were on Spring break, I had lots of vacation time “in the bank”, and a week away seemed like the thing to do.
We had rented a gorgeous beach house — off season rates are a wonderful thing for “the rest of us”. The trip down was a big 17 hour push to reach the beach, but by 9:00AM Monday we were in full-on beach mode. We went to the grocery store, appropriately provisioned ourselves for the next couple days, got our bathing suits out, and ahhhhhh beach time…
The week was pretty much spent playing in the sand, and generally chilling out. It. Was. Nice. The tides were low in the morning, so we could wade out to sandbars. The surf beyond was just enough for the little boys to boogie board. Then the tides would roll in during the afternoon, giving big rolling waves that my daughter loves — all while being in only a few feet of water. It’s “summer suit weather” in April in South Carolina — both in the water and about-town, and the kids were warm and happy.
I tried to do my share of the kitchen duties, so that neither parent wound up being inside all day, and was moderately successful. But even inside, with the breezes blowing through the house and the kids playing in the surf, it was still super nice.
We had a crazy big beach house. Two floors with 2 ocean facing decks. Master bedrooms on each floor. An elevator! We grabbed the upper master for ourselves. The Fabulous Daughter was luxuriating in her own master suite one floor down. The twins each had a bed to themselves, and by the end of the day were so worn out they would just conk out.
I’ve always liked going to the ocean. There’s something about the immensity and power of the ocean that appeals. It’s been a place I go to recharge my inner batteries ever since moving to New England back in 1989. We’ve always enjoyed New England Beaches — in particular the ones on Cape Ann (Massachusetts’ northern cape). We’ve shared our appreciation of the ocean with our kids — they’ve been ocean beach goers from birth.
It’s that quest for the yin and yang of playtime and serenity that led us to start doing some southern beach property rentals during the kids Spring break in April. We get a taste of the warm weather that will soon be in New England, the kids get tons of fun in the water or on shore, and the parents get a bit of a rest and a chance to breathe more deeply (“Oh hi there, remember me your husband?”). Beach houses are often thought of as party places…large houses full of shirtless muscled men and bikini clad women getting their drink on from ubiquitous red plastic cups. But we’ve found the houses of both North and South Carolina in April to be filled with families all eager for the same playtime and rest. This was our 3rd time renting at the beach and our second time visiting South Carolina.
Monday through Thursday were gorgeous weather days. The weather got progressively warmer as the week wore on, and by Thursday we were enjoying temperatures in the 80s. We fell into a fairly relaxed rhythm. The weather was supposed to change on Friday with rain expected, and we planned a shore day — perhaps visiting a battleship museum in nearby Charleston, SC.
Sure enough, I was awoken Friday at 0600 by the sound of wind whistling in the master bedroom. Realizing that the door in our bedroom leading to the deck was partially open I got up and pushed it shut. Then I heard a scraping noise and realized that the plastic deck chairs were blowing around in gusts that turned out to be up to 50 MPH.
I got out of bed and secured the chairs on the upper and lower decks. Looking out to the ocean I saw stuff on the outer deck blowing around as well.
Beach erosion is a problem in active weather areas. Ocean communities try to mitigate the erosion several ways. One way is to create buffer areas for native plants to thrive. These plants are happy in the sand and soil below and put down roots, which in turn helps retain the sand. These buffer areas are usually located between the houses and the beach proper. In order to reach the beach itself, homeowners build boardwalks over the protected areas. That protected area is also built a few feet up from the beach, so at the end are stairs leading down to the beach.
Hurricanes are also a challenge for beach communities. The tidal surges that accompany these big storms can push the ocean levels several feet higher than even an astronomically high tide, leading to floods and catastrophic property damage. To help mitigate property damage, homeowners build their ocean-facing homes on stilts. No need for a garage, just drive in under the house next to some stilts. A 2 story house on stilts on Folly Beach is actually more like a 4 or even 5 story structure, depending on how high the stilts are.
To reach the beach you go to the first floor of the house (actually the 2nd/3rd because of the stilts), and walk down the long boardwalk to a small deck very near the beach, and from there, down the steps and on to the actual beach.
The actual “beachy beach” where all the people are, and where you go to swim and play, are all communal in Folly Beach. Homeowners don’t have coastal rights — they are shared by all, which seems like the right thing to me. So the little deck at the end of the boardwalk is the last place where you have private property rights. You can sit on your deck and sip a glass of wine — but no alcohol on the beach, for example. The kids had taken to leaving their beach toys, umbrella, shovels, and shells collected that day on that small deck. Now the umbrella was blowing around in the gusty winds, and I could see there were more plastic chairs on that deck.
Down to the outer deck I went to secure the umbrella successfully. Then I went back to collect the plastic chairs — I didn’t want them to blow away and cost us our security deposit.
As I walked down the steps to the boardwalk I lost my balance and fell. Apparently, and we’ll never be sure, I either hip-checked the railing, or fell and slid into the railing. In either event the balusters all let go, and down I went…
In January 2018 I crashed while downhill skiing and suffered a concussion. Ten days later I slipped on an icy driveway and had a “probable” second concussion. This, of course, triggered a whole variety of responses from the medical community, including a neurological consultation. The neuro doc advised me to “be careful” during falls to avoid hitting my head and I’ve always tried to be more mindful of the advice.
As I crashed through the railing I had the “oh shit falling” reflex. My right hand reached out in a futile attempt to grab the floor of the boardwalk. Grabbing that and reaching safety would have been the stuff of superheroes, and sadly only my kids believe I have super powers.
I saw a documentary years ago about how people perceive frightening events, and how the brain processes traumatic and scary events as they unfold. In one experiment, a professor dropped subjects from a trap-door type platform into a net below. The platform was high in the air, the drop itself was several feet. To an acrophobe like me, and apparently to the test subjects, the experience, while safe, was terrifying. Later the professor used a stopwatch and asked the participants to visualize the drop. All of them uniformly overstate the duration of the fall (which was 1–2 seconds), often reporting times like 10–15, and even 30 seconds.
Gravity is now in control. I am falling, and there’s nothing I can do. It feels like it’s taking forever. The words “protect your head” from my neuro doc pop into my mind, and I grab my neck and head with my upper right arm. I try to shout but the words won’t come out. And then the ground rushes up. With a thud appropriate for a 238 pound guy, I crash into the scrub and sandy ground below, with the wood that formed the railing that was supposed to protect me landing nearby.
The pain was immediate, immense, and seemingly everywhere. First the panic of not being able to breathe. I can’t freaking breathe. I force myself to pull in air and — on the first exhalation- a painful coughing fit, and then, thank God, breathing. I can’t see, can’t focus, and I realize my glasses are not on my face. I feel around for them but come up empty-handed.
The pain comes in waves, and I scream and curse. The sounds coming from my mouth are unrecognizable even to me. I’m under a deck, on the ground in the plants and scrubs, on my back, in utter pain. The wind is howling, the surf is pounding. My family is sleeping. Will anybody come for me?
I need to get the hell out of here right now. I roll myself over onto my belly. Pain is searing through my back and I almost vomit from it. Ok, now let’s crawl out of here. I realize randomly in the moment that we’re in a semi-tropical part of the country, and I’m in untended bushes and plants. There are probably spiders in here and everybody who knows me well realizes I’m irrationally terrified of them. This is the motivation to crawl now. I try to push myself up but no good. Ok, we’ll get out of here army-crawl style on my belly. Let’s go. Right leg push! Left leg push! I said, left leg push! Left leg? Left leg?
Utter terror rolls over me. My left leg won’t move. This is it, I’m paralyzed. Life is over. I ponder for a moment all the bike rides I won’t get to take, all the family adventures I won’t have, all the love I won’t make, all the fly balls I won’t catch, the soccer I won’t play, all the race cars I won’t drive. Damn. I need help. Now. Finally I scream: “HEEEEEELP LEEEEEELA HEEEEEEELP!” over and over. I start to fade out. But I hear a voice calling “CHRIS CHRIS WHERE ARE YOU?” “I’M UNDER THE DECK HELP HELP”…..
Leela and my daughter come running down to where I’m laying. Leela yells “call 911” to my daughter. What happened? I don’t know, fell through the railing I think. Is anybody coming? Yes, people are coming right now…
I’m guessing that most people, when they go on vacation, don’t pay much attention to the medical and emergency facilities around where they are staying. Nice beach? Pretty house? Sure, that works. Never have I considered “how far afield is the nearest Level One trauma center from where I’m chillaxing?” Now, laying on the ground, screaming in pain and not able to fully move, I wonder is there even a hospital in Charleston? Does Folly Beach have a full EMS system? Can anybody help me? I fumble around and mercifully my glasses appear in front of me.
Somebody comes down to me. I think she introduced herself. It’s a police officer from the Folly Beach Police. Do I have ID? Yes, I fork over my driver’s license. I’m still not sure why that was necessary. She was friendly and reassuring told me to be still…help is on the way. Thank you, officer.
Fire fighters arrive next. Some knowledgeable person began touching my arms and legs in various places. Can you wiggle this, can you move that? Does this hurt? Finally he asks, can you wiggle your toes? Miraculously I can move my toes in both legs. Perhaps I’ve avoided paralysis.
Evaluation on the ground continued while the EMTs and firefighters determined best how to move me. Finally, they applied a cervical collar, moved me gently (and wildly painfully) onto a backboard, I was transported to the nearby University Hospital on the campus of Medical University of South Carolina. Who knew, the nearest Level One trauma center from my vacation rental was closer than the nearest L1 trauma center from my own home. And a medical university.
The initial Emergency Room experience is a wall of pain and embarrassment. I refused morphine in the ambulance until I had been further evaluated. After extensive testing — poking, prodding, touching all over, X-rays, multiple CT scans, a million questions by multiple doctors, finally I welcomed a little relief from the pain. MUSC had a full team ready to respond to my arrival. Their professionalism, care, concern, and compassion was enormous and reassuring.
I’m hungry. It’s mid-morning, I haven’t eaten since dinner the following night and I could do with something in my painful belly. No go, say the doctors. If you need surgery you need to be clear of food and beverage for several hours. More pain meds, then the embarrassment of not being able to use the bathroom without assistance and having to use a urinal, and the further indignity of a rectal exam — a necessary precursor to surgery.
Finally the diagnoses: No neural deficits, no internal organ damage. Lots of bumps and bruises that are painful and will take some time to heal. This is great news. Now the bad news: I’ve broken a vertebrae. T12 (last of the upper spine) has sustained an “unstable burst fracture with complications”. This is the worst — a broken back. I whimper from my ER bed while visions of a life filled with physical limitations and discomfort dance in my head.
The Ortho Resident who brought me the bad news explains to me the notion of a scale of severity of injury. My simple layman’s understanding of the scoring is: 1–3: No Surgery, 5 and above: Surgery; a 4: ??? . It might be the opposite of that (the pain drugs were strong while learning about this in ER), but the “4” is definitely “uncertainty.”
To a software and startup guy like me, it’s the underpants gnome all over again. I use the analogy all the time when I’m talking to would-be entrepreneurs. At the outset of a new venture, it’s easy to see the early steps, and even easier to visualize the success you’ll achieve. But nearly always there’s the moment where “and then something happens and THEN we make a lot of money”. The successful ventures are the ones that know the “something” and make it happen. The ones that fail never figure out the “something”.
Four. The medical equivalent of ??? .This means uncertainty about the best therapy and “this is largely up to you and your family sir”. But, says the Ortho Resident giving me the wicked bad news, “We feel that surgery now will provide you the best possible outcome. Dr. Reitman is the emergency on-call ortho surgeon, and he can do your surgery tonight.”
My Northern/Boston prejudice (one I never fully realized I had) kicks in: You’ve got nice beaches here, but do you even have real health care? This is South Carolina, you can’t even say ‘you all’ properly.” I make a mental note to flatten more vowels and sound more northern. But beyond my stupid prejudices, Boston is sorta the Mecca of medical care. People come from around the world to get care at Mass General, Brigham and Women’s, Beth Israel, Children’s Hospital, etc. New England Baptist is renowned for their work in orthopedics. Shouldn’t we go back to Boston and into the hands of the best people on the planet?
We hatch a plan with the doctors: Get me in a full brace, pump me full of narcotics, then commercial air travel back to Boston for care there. “It’s potentially a viable path forward for you, sir”, says the Resident, but I can see the pessimism in his face. I have to try this, the idea of surgery — freaking spine surgery — in a strange place 983 miles from home is truly terrifying. The idea of a potentially long convalescence away from family, far from my wife who I adore — makes me feel tired and depressed just imaging it.
So we give it a shot. A fellow from the Orthotics Department, and who I shall forever refer to as Ben from Boston, rolls in with a full upper body brace. The team works diligently to get me into the brace, rolling me carefully and getting me in the brace. Finally we sit up and Ben from Boston tightens the thing until I nearly can’t breathe. It’s time to try to walk. I get off the bed and walk a few yards down the hall for a standing X-ray. I nearly faint from the pain but I get through it. The pain is off the charts. I can’t wait to get back to uncomfortable ER bed to lie down.
This is all no good — I couldn’t support myself for more than a few moments and “this one goes to 11” on the “how is your pain on a 1–10 scale?”. Then we start talking about the reality of getting surgery in Boston. I might have to endure this for 4–5–6 weeks before I can get a bed and operating room time at one of the outstanding Boston-area hospitals. I’ve got a high tolerance for pain, but hell no I can’t do this. We brainstorm with family members who are themselves doctors, we talk to our case manager, and to the doctors at MUSC. There is no clear way to fly to Boston to a waiting ambulance and go immediately to surgery.
But the prospect of “unscheduled emergency surgery” scares me. The surgeon who will operate is the weekend ortho on-call surgeon. Mental images of a kid half my age standing around waiting for a call while the adults say “call us if you need anything” while rushing out for the weekend spring to mind. So who is this Reitman fellow?
Dr. Charles Reitman, who I believe is chief of orthopedic surgery and co-director of the spine center for the Medical University of South Carolina turns out to be the “on call guy”. This is reassuring. I’m further reassured when he shows up in the ER to chat about the procedure. He’s an older guy like me, was previously at Baylor, has a Texas drawl, mountains of knowledge, and a significant amount of self-confidence. He describes the procedure in detail, and when I joke that he apparently has done this 3–4 times he chuckles and says “yes, in the last month”.
He eloquently explains that, in his opinion, this procedure WILL make me feel better quickly, and that I’ll have a better outcome with surgery than by allowing this injury to heal on its own or by doing the surgery significantly later. He lays this all out matter-of-factly. He’ll be happy to do my surgery, doesn’t care it’s a holiday weekend, we just need to find an OR. “They’re doing liver and kidney transplants down there, we’ll have to work out the scheduling for tonight or most likely tomorrow morning.”
He chats on the phone with one of my wife’s relatives (himself an orthopedic doctor) who was advocating for me to return to Boston. At the end of the call, Uncle agrees with him that I should have the procedure. Dr. Reitman knows surgeons in the Boston area and will get me excellent follow-up care. The husband of another cousin, himself a surgeon, texts back “Reitman is good…you are in good hands.” Decision made. At 9:00PM on Friday evening I give consent to surgery and sign the necessary waivers.
The doctor and the Scheduling Gods have determined that 7:00 Saturday AM is time for the surgery. I am whisked away by a very efficient pre-op team and taken to the prep area. There I confer with the anesthesiology team. I had surgery back in 1984, and in follow-up the surgeon told me “Chris you really scared us for a few minutes”. It seems they had trouble getting me to breathe again post procedure. The young team assures me they’ve got my back and I’ll be fine. Not feeling reassured. Finally, an older woman closer to my age than their’s steps forward. She leans in close, takes my hand, squeezes tightly, looks me in the eye and says “Sweetie, nobody is going to let you die today.” I’m fine now, let’s go.
In the Operating Room, they tell me they’ll knock me out first, and then do the painful move from bed to table, and all the other prep work. I’m good with this. They clamp a mask over my face, ask me to breathe deeply, the room spins, and I’m out.
Time distortion while under anesthesia is a weird thing. There’s no dreaming while you’re under. So it feels like one moment you’re falling asleep, the next moment (3 hours later) you’re in the recovery room, then asleep, and then the next moment you’re gazing into the eyes of your loving wife.
As I fully awaken and start to move my body around, I’m immediately aware of the realization “this hurts less”. But as I try to sample food or take pain medication I start to feel wildly nauseous. They give me some medicine to control it, but it doesn’t really help. So from about noon on Saturday until Monday AM I refuse pain medications, and subsist on jello. They let me rest and sleep it off on Saturday. On Sunday the PT/OT folks arrive. I’m asked to work with them to sit up. I feel incredibly weak, and realize it’s been close to 60 hours since I had substantial food. I manage to sit up at their direction for a full 20 seconds.
A Washington State Senator recently said of Nurses: “They probably play cards for a considerable amount of the day.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Of all the medical staff, nurses are the ones closest to the patients. They spend hours a day on their feet running from patient to patient. It is ridiculously hard work.
Finally, my wife and one of my nurses finally figured out the whole zen of nausea and pain medication for me. She put me on an IV-infused anti-nausea medication that worked very well. With that in place we began a regimen of pain medications — over the counter and prescription, non-narcotic and narcotic that began to get my pain under control and allow me to eat. Monday AM I had a few bites of pancake and some yogurt. PT came and I got out of bed, used the walker, and went up and down the hall on a short walk. I credit Leela with sorting out my medications, and the nurse who worked with her to figure out the correct medicine mix with getting me back on my feet and able to rehab. Wherever you are dear Nurse, thank you.
Tuesday and Wednesday passed with more visits from PT and OT people. I walked the halls and did the stairs. I got my pain well-controlled. I ate as much as I could to get stronger. Then on Thursday morning the surgical resident came in around 6:00AM and said “you’re going home today”. Wow…
It wasn’t just my wife and I that had been on vacation. It was our kids as well. On Friday after things were more clear regarding surgery, my wife began making plans to both stay with me and get the kids home. The kids had been in limbo since my accident, spending all day Friday in the ER waiting room, but mercifully Friday night and all day Saturday with a professional nanny. The wonderful folks at Grace Church Cathedral (Episcopal) had responded to requests for help from my brother and sister-in-law in California. They connected us to a fabulous nanny who is part of the church. She spent Friday evening, all day Saturday and into Sunday with the kids. She got them food, took them for outings, even bought them sweatshirts when they were cold. She helped my wife pack up the vacation house.
Now it was time to get the kids home and on Sunday morning my sister-in-law and a cousin arrived, having flown in on short notice. We had a quick hello, then they got the kids, the minivan, and started the long trip back to New Jersey and onto Massachusetts.
And I can’t say enough good things about the Indian community in the Charleston area. By their own account they are a small community of perhaps 600. But when word went out that a fellow Indian family (my wife is Indian) was having trouble they reached out en masse. One family even visited the hospital, bringing my wife some delicious food.
Thursday brought a flurry of activity that I could only watch. For me it’s no bending, lifting, or twisting. Don’t lift more than 5 pounds. So I sit around while my wife packs up our stuff. She picks up prescriptions, consolidates all our stuff, and gets us ready to go. Finally, we roll out of the hospital, into an Uber, off to the airport Hilton, and home by commercial air carrier the next day.
I am alive. I have no neurological deficits. I didn’t die in the fall. I didn’t become paralyzed. My family is home and safe. I am home and safe. These are the facts about the outcome of all this that matter. There are so many ways this could have turned out so much worse. I could have landed on my neck and been killed — or worse yet paralyzed or left in a vegetative state.
I am grateful to so many people that I can’t even begin to name them all…the EMS, police, and fire department; the MUSC staff, including all the doctors, nurses, technicians, staff, students, and Residents; the members of Grace Church Cathedral (Charleston); Laura the nanny; the MUSC chaplain; the woman running the garden outside the hospital; my surgeon Dr. Reitman; our cousin Kishore; my sister-in-law Satya; my in-laws, parents, and family; the Desi community in Charleston; all the people who responded to calls for help and reached out in so many ways. I know just writing this that I’ve missed people, mea culpa to those I overlooked.
The news cycle is full of stories about terrible people doing terrible things. This experience reminds me that the good people in this world significantly outweigh the bad, and that there is much to celebrate about human kindness and goodness to others.
It was 1989 and I had just moved to New England. I was working for a large computer company. It was early days living in a new state in a whole new part of the country, and my circle of friends was awesome but tiny. One day this vision of beauty and intelligence wandered into my cubicle. For me it was love at first sight. For her not so much. But friendship grew and 8 years later came a passionate courtship, love, marriage, and a life together. I am more in love with her now than when I met her. I still get goosebumps when she touches me, and my heart skips a beat when she walks into the room. She opened my eyes to a new country, a new culture, and a part of the world I previously had never known. 19 years after marriage I still sit back amazed while she converses with family, effortlessly switching between multiple languages. She is one of the smartest humans I know, but also one of the most grounded. Her beauty dazzles me and I still pinch myself, wondering if this is some elaborate dream. She’s the center of my life — a space shared only by our children — my reason to keep going when it gets tough, and a boundless source of strength. She’s my best friend, my co-conspirator, the love of my life, my silly joker, and the best partner a man could wish for. I thank God for her, for our relationship, and for the family we’ve been blessed with.
…Oh, oh big ol’ jet airliner
Carry me to my home
Oh, oh big ol’ jet airliner
’Cause it’s there that I belong…
My wife Leela stayed by my side throughout this whole ordeal. Except for a few hours when she was taking care of the kids, she remained close by. She slept on a crappy cot in my hospital room, stood with me in the pre-op room while they prepped me, was waiting for me after surgery, went to PT and OT with me, and virtually never left my side. I could not have gotten through this and made a good recovery without her support, her help, and her strength. Thank you my love…thank you.
It is hard to say what’s next. The doctors are all optimistic. Give it a few months they say and you’ll be doing all the things you used to do. I am less optimistic, but determined to get my life back on track and get on with things. Getting comfortable with 24 hour pain is a new thing, and I’m working to get used to that.
But mostly, I wake up every day now, recall what happened, and smile because I am alive and things are going to somehow all be ok.
Fin.