You gotta watch out for complacency, especially when it's getting close to the end of a float.

I was doing an inspection on the seatbelts in the pilot seat of a Cobra, so I was standing on a little boading skeg on the side of the fuselage, bent over inside the aircraft as I monkied with the inertia reel controls. That skeg is covered with non-skid, which is thick paint mixed with sand, to create a high-friction surface. But we've been on this MEU almost twice as long as standard procedure, and our aircraft are in terrible shape. So that non-skid was worn away.

Perhaps inevitably, my foot slipped off the nonskid, and I began a rapid plummet. It's four feet down to the ground, but I only slid about a foot before a projection at the bottom of my torso caught on the bottom sill of the cockpit hatch and brought me to an abrupt halt. The projection on the bottom of my torso to which I refer would be my testicles.

So I kind of rolled off the aircraft onto the deck and prayed for death for a few minutes, while the guy I was supervising on this inspection alternated between asking if I was OK and laughing hysterically. Eventually I recovered enough to painfully hobble over to the ammo bay doors and sit down for a while.

Aften the agony faded, I discovered that while falling, my right hand had been reflexivly scrabbling for a handhold, and my wrist dragged over something sharp. So I'd peeled off several square inches of skin on my wrist, and it was bleeding all over the place.

I went down to medical and got my wrist washed up and bandaged. I think I bruised my tendons, because grasping stuff hurts. No serious harm was done though.

The post title comes because when you're walking around with blood coming off your wrist, people start making assumptions. I'd just like to make it known here that I am quite well aware that the proper procedure is "Down the street, not across the road." Thank you.

And if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get two icepacks, one for my arm and one for my crotch.

Posted by: Boviate at 09:43 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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