While attending a birthday party for a couple friends at a club, I was stepped on by a girl in high-heels. I've been stepped on by heels before and have found it to be quite painful with occasional bruising. However, this time, the weapon-donning woman was stepping down from a foot-high step and descended squarely into the center of my foot. The pain initially caused teeth-clenching and wincing, but quickly proceeded into uncontrollable tears. The severity of the incident revealed itself in the form of blood, not necessarily the stream running down my foot, but more so the puddle that formed under and around my foot in only a matter of seconds. One of my heroes of the night picked me up and carried me out of the club, yelling for people to move, as I sobbed in his arms, getting blood on anybody who wasn't paying attention or was unable to move in time.
Sitting on a stool outside the bar I was attended to by several friends and an employee of the club who teamed together to apply compression and ice to the wound. Regaining my composure miraculously quickly, I started taking pictures of the scene with my phone and was already laughing about the ridiculousness of the situation. Eventually, the gushing stopped and the employee insisted I go to the hospital, in an ambulance nonetheless (all expenses paid). So Hero #1, carried me into the very slow elevator, down 4 floors and to my awaiting chariot. Hero #2 carried my things and joined me on the trip to the hospital.
*The photo of the foot with the shoe is my OTHER foot, onto which the injured foot had bled. The middle photo is my attendees treating me. The third photo is just a mess of bloody paper towels.
Having thankfully never needed to be in an ambulance or emergency room in the US, I cannot offer any comparison on the matter. The ambulance was pretty much all I could expect from an ambulance and the hospital was some kind of emergency clinic, but other than the exam room and the exit, I didn't see much.
Explaining what happened to the medics and the doctor at the hospital (and everyone else since then) was pretty entertaining, because it seems like such a freak event. But being the middle of the night and having a foreigner with a gaping wound, everyone proceeded very seriously (I'm not complaining, but I think they did find my spirited mood reassuring, in the least). The doctor took x-rays and by some chance nothing was broken. He proceeded to anesthetize and clean the area with needles and cut around the edges of the wound to get rid of the ragged rim. Up to here I was sitting up on my stretcher watching (again, baffling to the staff) and I found it interesting. I don't know if it was the loss of blood or some inner disgust at seeing my own blood (I'm thinking the former), but I started getting queasy and light-headed so I had to lay down and couldn't watch him put in the 4 stitches. They wrapped me up, gave me drugs and sent me back to my hostel at 4 am. Unfortunately, the adrenalin took some time to wear off and by the time I was calmed enough to sleep the pain kicked in, so sleeping was not an option. But that was okay, because there was no way I would being going into work the next day.
If the story were to end here, I would be comfortable calling it a pretty good story. But it gets better. The next day I go to a doctor in my town and before the bandages were completely off, he noticed how red and swollen my foot was- sure signs of infection. He gave me stronger antibiotics, more pain medicine and a tetanus shot, then sent me home for 2-3 more days of bed rest. The pain continued to be tear-jerking for a few days, but the doctor gave me crutches and I moved some bedding to the first-floor so I wouldn't have to deal with walking up and down stairs. Today seems to have been a good day, while the swelling hasn't decreased much, the pain is much more tolerable and I can almost walk on a flat foot, almost.
The End (hopefully).
Probably my favorite picture from the event: Can you guess which foot was gushing blood??
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