JP74

My last month can be summed up by the digitised voice in the old Mega Drive game, ESWAT.

In a moment of desperate bad luck, I fell in the street and broke my left arm. As ever, it wasn’t quite that simple…

I’d been invited down to the .net awards on the 18th November, held in London. A lot of my friends and industry piers were going and I took our contact James from the D&AD. I met up with Phil Sherry at his hotel, had a beer, met his boss Mikey, then proceeded to meet Colly, Dan Donald, AlunR et al at a pub close to the venue, which all happened without incident.

We went to the awards, hosted by Zeldman (shorter in real-life), had a few free beers, met fellow front-ender and VW camper van nut Ian Lloyd for the first time and a lot more lovely people. The actual awards were a bit of a non-surprise, to be brutal. End of the night, get our coats and head back to the hotels. At 11.30pm.

Mine and Phil’s hotels were in walking distance of the venue, so we set off to have a final beer at his hotel as Phil and Mikey were catch an 8.30am train back to the North East.

The drama happened as we were running to cross over a junction before the lights turned red. Stumble, fall, hand out… and I knew straight away I’d broken my arm. It really was as simple – and as stupid – as that.

So what did they do?

As you can see from the x-ray, they’ve plated the radius with six screws, and pushed a wire through the middle of the ulna bone, and basically threaded the broken bits of bone onto it. According to someone who knows how this is done, it’s not a delicate manouvre, and it’s a good job I was out like a light for it. It would also explain the marks I have on my upper arm that look like it’s been in a vice. The doctor pointed out that the wire is left long, so that they can pull it out again…