Eight years ago this month I was a 53 year old NICU and Transport RN. I was fit and healthy and enjoying a new chapter in my life after a divorce, an empty nest, the deaths of my parents, and a move to a new state. Scheduled to work the 7 PM to 7 AM shift in the NICU that November night, I readily agreed when I was asked to come in early for a short transport. The hospital required us to park on the dark roof of an old parking garage when we came in for transports, and that late fall night had produced something nasty in the dark: patches of black ice. I was walking around my car to get my bag out of the passenger seat when I set my turning foot down on thick black ice. I was on my back before I knew what had happened, down between two cars in the dark, in a black flight suit, with my left foot pointing towards Mexico.
Thank God for cell phones. Within minutes a take-no-prisoners charge nurse from the NICU found me in the dark and called the ER for a gurney and a paramedic. She escorted the gurney to a trauma bay, got my boot off before the first big wave of pain hit, started an IV - after telling the ER attending to get the fuck out of her way NOW - and started pushing pain meds. It was the last good medical care I would receive for months.