Cable and rope snaggling .. What ursomeness of it all?

Sat 17 May 2008, 16:11

Oh don't be nitwits and so nasty! I was mocking myself and my freak accident also caused by getting a piece of clothing snagged on a cable - and a possible sinister Wychwayz Morris connection (rooted in ancient proto-mythologies and dark forces of olden time and a poor attempt at rendering dialect) and drawing out quite how many people in the dance group have suffered freak accidents. Tony and I both belong to Wychwayz (or rather belonged in my case, the leg injury means I can't dance).

Have people forgotten that 2 years ago I got a bootlace hook snagged in a freak accident on a bicycle cable at the start of a May Day charity ride, darn near ripped my left leg off, and was helicoptered out?

The leg was pulled out of the socket straight out and up sideways with such force that the knee hit my ear so hard the ear swelled up. After much resistance and embarrassment about "them making a fuss about a chopper I wasn't dying" they finally persuaded me to take a helicopter ride to JR 'cos otherwise the ambulance would be off station for nigh on 3 hours with no Bank Holiday backup and what if someone had a heart attack? That finally swayed me to accept (the chopper was on its way back from Worcester or somewhere like that to the JR so in the air anyway) as well as warnings that with my sciatic nerve so badly trapped I was in danger of paralysing the leg permanently if it wasn't got at quick.

In the last 2 years out of about 8 dancers in Wychwayz, 3 have now had nasty freak accidents - two of us by getting bits of apparel caught on a cable and brutally dumped - and two of the three with broken hips in various forms.

Tony seems to have escaped the most lightly of the Wychwayz Three but I would recommend that he sees a good chiropractor or osteopath soon - his neck and upper spine is bound to have been upset by a tumble of that nature and a bit o' straightening out could forestall long term problems! Best of luck and a quick recovery and do take my advice - I had serious spinal injuries as a young man which I neglected until they basically disabled me permanently when my health broke down under pain and sleep deprivation and the subtle effects upon the body system of compression of the vagus nerve in particular - watch out for damage to that nerve from the fall Tony, was it left or right shoulder you hit? If right get it checked most certainly!

As for me it turns out I did have a broken hip after all, the JR missed that 6" of my pelvic bone had been ripped off in a strip from the main structure by the tendon and ligament holdfasts detaching. The cost of cost cutting.

Most dislocations occur like Igor's - where the leg is forcibly moved up towards the chest beyond its limits, but in Igor's case the damage to the acetabulum (the hip bone socket) was profound due to the impact speed of the car he was a passenger in, and we must all hope that it doesn't lead to long term disability from osteo-arthritis, to which he will now be highly prone.

As a result of the oversight with me and transected muscles which didn't grow back properly I will probably never be able to cycle much again, and have to walk with care because much holding things in place don't work too good no more. And it hurts.

Now the "sinister" Wychwayz connection... what gives that 1/3 of its membership should have had nasty accidents, two of 8 dancers hoiked up by getting clothing snagged in cables?

It might have been hard for people to make the connection with a poor attempt to write a localised West Sussex dialect from the last area converted to Christianity in the British Isles (apparently)...

Morris is a sliver of ur-some beliefs dating back to our origins in the boreal forest - dark, sinister, full of hidden dangerous animals - that our ancestors came to out of Africa and the open savannah and coastal margins.

Myths, legends, fears, so old, so embedded, so prototypical that arguably they are not cultural but in our genes. The ur forms of imago and mythago. Do we stir dark forces best unmoved ... and some pay the price....