Taking a spill on the job

I went to do a feature on a curler. That's right, curling. So he was showing me how he throws the rock as I'm standing on the side. He starts walking to the other side of the rink, so I step off the space behind the end and onto the ice without thinking. One foot slides but I'm able to catch myself before falling and try to look cool as I walk behind the guy. We take a couple more steps and he says, "You know we're on ice, right?" and chuckles. Yeah, thanks.

 

The walk along the baseline while volleyballers are warming up their serve can also be a little scary, though not nearly as dangerous. But I honestly think those girls were aiming at me.

 

I was writing and shooting a football game this past fall as the play came toward me, I started backpedaling a little bit to get out of the way like I usually do. However I forgot this field had a slight hill a few yards behind the sideline.

First I'm backing up, the next thing I know I'm down on my ass.

The competing media and my photog got a laugh out of it. I did too after the embarrassement wore off.

Also that season, I was walking toward the scorer's table before a soccer game and as I walked behind the local team's goal during warmups. I got clunked by an errant shot about 10 feet wide of the goal.

No wonder that team won three games all year. They can't get the ball in a soccer goal, but they can take me out when I'm walking away from it.

 

I've had a few tough hockey days. The first year I was doing hockey, I was along the boards with no glass and I had a clearing shot come right up and hit the lens of my camera square on. I wasn't hurt, but had to explain to the boss how the puck came up that night. I think I went down, maybe a sting on my hand, but not too shook up.

Either that year or the next year, I was in another rink just behind the glass at the edge of a bench and i turned for a quick minute to reload my batteries. Sure enough, slapshot to the back of the head. A bit of swelling, maybe a concussion, but I finished the game, took some aspirin the trainer gave me and kept swelling down.

A third time, I was shooting an all-star game at an arena and a fellow photographer and I were shooting in a non-glassed area again. We didn't see it at the time, but one of the players' aunts saw us shooting there and thought she'd be safe. Sure enough, before I had time to get her out of there, she got hit right in the temple and went down immediately - I went with her and a lot of people thought i was hit. I was still covered in a pool of blood, but apparently she was fine eventually.

Otherwise, not falls, but I've covered games in storms that left me so muddied and wet it's been incredibly miserable, I split my pants once on an outdoor assignment and had to finish a high-class wine tasting with a lot of skin showing, and I've certainly covered ball tournaments where I've been so dehydrated and sweaty I could have passed out.

The other one might not have been about a story, but I was curling on my publisher's team one year and almost every game I'd either go head over heels or kill a rock trying to stay balanced. I'm sure she was pleased.

 

Running down the side of a grass-berm style small-college football stadium to catch a coach for a postgame interview 16 or so years ago, I slipped on the grass, took a full gainer and separated/tore a ligament in my right shoulder.

I went back to the office and typed the story one-handed (I didn't have much practice in that pursuit ). The next day I went to the doctor, who kneaded it around for a few minutes, took an X-ray, told me it wasn't fractured, but also that my insurance wouldn't cover an MRI. I could pay for one on my own if I wanted to (several hundred bucks), and I passed.

He said, "We'd have to get an MRI to know for sure, but if you were a baseball pitcher and really needed that arm, we'd go right in for surgery." Instead, he told me to wear it in a sling for a week or so, gave me some Vicodins to chew on, and said, "it'll gradually improve -- somewhat." And it did -- somewhat.

It's not like I was Nolan Ryan before, but now, I can throw a baseball about 25 feet.

 

I was walking out of the spring training ballpark in West Palm Beach where the Braves used to train. You had to go out of the bleachers and onto the concourse to get to the clubhouse. All of a sudden a crowd of kids starts running at me. I stopped instinctively, and sure enough -- a foul ball lands just in front of me and bounces high off the concrete. Two more steps and it would have nailed me.

 

I had one of those a few years ago. I was shooting a prep baseball game. I was standing next to the first-base dugout and all of a sudden, I hear the coach telling someone to watch out as I was checking my photos.

What I didn't realize was that he was talking to me.

Fortunately the ball landed three feet to my right.

 

I played golf with him once with a couple other media types. I thought we were going to need a MedeVac by the sixth hole. (He was actually pretty good at the ball.)
I saw him a few months ago, you wouldn't recognize him.

 

Covered a high school softball game in the first week of the job at a former newspaper. Girl strikes out to end an inning, I'm marking it on my scorebook, then all of a sudden, I see a bat flying near me. I only had to move a couple of steps, because it wasn't that close, but close enough, if you know what I mean.

Coach immediately yanked the player out of the game, then both coach and player apologized to me after the game.

 

The Lakers writers used to play basketball after covering practice. The team finally made them stop because they feared he was going to keel over at some point, and they didn't want the liability.
I know he got the stomach staple and lost a ton of weight (not literally a ton, but close).

 

Isn't language wonderful? The first time I read this, I was picturing an actual flying bat hovering around your head.

 

Nah, it was just this dumb teenage girl who decided to go Delmon Young on me. Luckily, the bat didn't get that close.