Date of Injury April 9, 2008
Time of injury (0:00 to 23:59) 2130
Your DOB and age 9/21/86. 21 years old.
name (remember this is the internet, name is helpful but not mandatory)
City, State: Charlottesville, va
# years practicing Parkour / Freerunning: Little bit over a year.
Hours of training per week. (real, not what you'd like to do): 5-10 hrs.
Other exercise / fitness experience: Basketball, yoga, theater movement: Butoh, minor dancing.
Location where injury occurred: University campus.
Conditions of location (wet, dark, icy, etc): Nighttime: dark. Not very well lit. Good temperature. Grass was still a little wet from rain of a few days ago.
What you were doing / trying to do when injury occurred? I was trying to wall climb onto a crane... or at least, I think that's how it's called. Basically, kicking a wall-up and landing with the opposite foot on the top without necessarily using your hands. Kicking foot slipped and slammed my shin right below the knee.
Where any other people involved? Other people from the club, training as well.
Part of body - description of injury, rating of severity 1-10. Shin, a few inches below the knee. It tore a hole into the shin, but somehow (I'm not sure), and thankfully, didn't break or even hairline the bone. It was just a deep cut that required a few stitches.
Did you see a doctor for diagnosis? ER room.
Did you get X-rays or MRI's? X-rays checking for bone.
Picture of the injury: No... I have one...but it's gross.
Could you / how could you have avoided the injury? I keep thinking about this. I've done that jump enough times in the past to be comfortable with it. I should have listened to my gut that day telling me I wasn't really up for training. I've never been a fan of training at night, and I should have been more conscious of the fact that the grass was wet as well.
Basically, I should have looked a little closer at my environment.
Date / type / severity of your last injury? First serious parkour-related injury.
Notes on the experience?
Definitely will consider training more carefully at night, if at all. It's an interesting element that may be necessary for parkour, but there is a greater risk. Will focus on committing to my actions more, and never growing comfortable just because i can do one move enough times. I think that the importance of flowing through the environment requires me to pay attention to every single action I'm taking. In other words, I cannot take what I do for granted simply because I can do them: they are still risky movements.
