Paralyzed!

1977

It was Saturday morning and my oldest brother was playing in a soccer game at a local school. The established routine during the games was that the siblings, however many of us were lugged forth, would roam the school grounds while mom watched my oldest broheim in his soccer match. On this day it was my younger brother and I who tagged along with Mom Klem. Furthermore, it was I who got into some trouble.

We were eight and ten years old. We were walking around the classroom buildings just wasting time hoping the game would be over quickly. I don’t recall the specifics of our unsupervised mischief, but at one point I was lying on my belly on the walkway leaning over a storm drain adjacent to a building, and I fell. My hands and arms were occupied somehow so they were not free to stop my fall. I landed on my head. It was only a three foot drop, but the landing surface was concrete.

“I can’t move my arms,” I said to my brother. I was a scared little guy, but not yet frantic.

I awkwardly got back to my feet without the use of my hands and arms on account of the paralysis. (Really awkward without the benefit of these two nifty limbs. Try it.) I then had to get back up to the walkway. There were handrails that I could previously have used to pull myself back up to grade level, but they were useless to me given my state of paralysis. The walkway to which I was trying to reestablish myself was at belly button height. I bent forward lying on my belly and chest then rolled over to get back up there. I again awkwardly got to my feet.

The plan, I guess, was to tell mom that I had an accident and half my limbs were now nonfunctional. Luckily, after taking a few steps my arms and hands tingled back to life and their use was restored!

A scary two minutes quickly faded away and was never discussed again.
-klem