Checking your enviroment

Written By Jammie

How often do you run up first, and take a feel of the wall you are about to vault? Or test the rail you are about to precision onto, to see if its wobbly or unsafe? Probably not as much as you should, especially if you haven't bailed yet. IIts time wasting and boring to go round checking everything whilst in the middle of a jam, or in the middle of a great session, isn't it?

This is my story:

It was a cold march evening, and i was stepping out the shower when the phone rang. It was my friend Shaun, him and Jack, were out training, and they wanted me to join in with them. Being new and exited about Parkour, naturally i said yes. I dryed myself, got changed, and donned some pink hair colouring ( There was a mad hair day fundraiser the next day, and i decided to give it a try).

I met my friends on the corner of my street and we made our way down towards our favourite spot. As we walked we talked about what there was new to do, and laughed about a Shauns Bail at school that morning, plus a couple of vaults along the way. Easy stuff, preparing for our latest find. The walls, we called them. A series of tall parralel walls with loads of opportunities to vault, climb, and Cat leap/Arm Jump.

We trained here for a bit, and practiced our techs, I even landed a sweet Cat Leap/Arm jump which I'd never done before, so by the time we left i was feeling pretty good. Then Jack said that he had to go in for his Tea, by this time it was pretty dark, so me and shaun carried on Training for a bit, then decided to go back up the road we came from, and meet jack as he came back.

We decided to stop half way by a ditch, that is fairly big, and jump across it. After we had done a few running jumps, we decided to do it standing. It was pretty easy. Then we spotted another challenge.

A bollard, sticking out of the ground about a foot. We decided to stand on that and jump it. It was a big different this time, the jump was bigger, and looked a lot higher. Shaun went for it, but bottled out. I was really buzzing so i decided to try it. I stood on top of the bollard, and jumped.

I cant remember much of what happened then, it all went really fast. The bollard collapsing just as i jumped, my body flailing in the air, the thud of landing on my stomach, and the splash of the water, when my legs landed in it.

I was so shocked i bounced straight up, and checked my soaking wet trousers, i was so worried about how screwed i was that i had wrecked my trousers, i didn't even notice my Arm, until the pain kicked in.

I looked down at my arm, and was nearly sick. My arm was broken, and your could see the bone poking against my skin. I ran back to friend shouting "Shit, my arm is broken!", we slowly made our way to my house. Where i was taken to the hospital by my mum. The night following was awful, i had my arm pulled to try and get it back in place which was awful, and the pain was horrible. Then when it didn't work i had to spend the night in hospital, then have an operation in the morning. Turns out it was broken in two places.

As you can see, all that could have been avoided if i have taken 2 seconds to check the bollard, which shows the real importance of checking your enviroment. So ask your self again, is it boring to check your enviroment? Or is 2 seconds of effort too much to prevent possible injury?

Peace Out.