Friday, July 31, 2009

Injury!!

The trail is a dangerous place where things can happen quickly.

While coming down huge slabs of slippery rock (common in Maine), one has to walk on the muddy sides and hold onto trees for support. The pine trees have the small limbs broken off, but not all the way. About 4 inches of hard wood stick out horizontally. Under the muddy sides
of the trail there are often roots and sometimes they cause even the well placed foot to slip out.

Toward the end of a long day of hiking carefully in these situations a supposedly well placed foot slipped. In order to not fall down a huge rock slab, I of course hung onto the tree. My body swung around the tree and I hung on. In a flash, the tree approached my face and one of
those broken limbs came within a fraction of an inch of poking out my right eye. Bleeding started. To say it shook me up is an understatement! That evening another hiker took a picture of the damage. There was a swollen black eye for days after.

Here is a picture of the damage.

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