Monday was Constitution Day here so we had the day off. Some of my friends were going to Phuket for the weekend so I decided to be social and go. Left early Saturday morning, got to Phuket around 12:30ish. Drove around for a bit looking for a place to stay. Ended up finding a little place a 2 minute walk from the beach. Had two beer waiting for people to get dressed, started throwing a frisbee around with Arvid. It might also be important to note that I'm not very good at frisbee. I can sort of catch and know how to run at a moderate speed but throwing is not one of the skills that the world blessed me with. So I eventually throw an awful pass to Arvid, goes way hard right and lands on the roof. We walk over to check it out. Looks a little flimsy but I'm not that heavy, won't be on it long and bad stuff doesn't really happen to me. I also didn't want to be responsible for losing a $5 frisbee.
So I jump onto a small wall, put some weight on the roof, no problems. Start walking across the roof, get a hold of the frisbee, immediately throw it to Arvid. Then things started to go poorly. My left leg fell through then the rest of the roof I was standing on collapsed. I fell tailbone first, apparently landed on a water jug/cooler which may or may not have helped ease my fall. I fell into a Thai kitchen and luckily didn't land on anyone or anything dangerous. I really think I got lucky by not getting more injured.
So picture a bunch of Thai people working at their restaurant, taking orders, speaking Thai and a massive white, shirtless white man rudely crashes into your kitchen via the roof. The word surprised might be a tad of an understatement. They immediately called for an ambulance, gave me water, fanned me down and were pretty understanding considering I ruined their roof. Ended up taking my first ever ambulance ride. Doctor took some X-rays, broke my wrist, got some stitches in my leg, a few cuts but overall feel way better each day. At the hospital they have a chart from 1-10. 1 being a green smiley face and 10 is a bright red angry face. They ask you about different parts of your body and you are suppose to point to the corresponding level of pain. I opted for orange for my back and a yellowish color for my wrist. Really is a brilliant system for a place that is inundated with several different languages daily. Tailbone felt like when you take a super hard fall snowboarding but multiplied by 9. Cast might be on for 8 weeks, I'm shooting for four.
Waited until I came back to Nakhon to get my cast done, wanted to trust whoever was in charge of my long term health. Decent care here in my opinion. Although I have been called stubborn by a few doctors and friends the past two days; I disagree. My school covered all of the costs. Whenever people see me though they assume I am some dumb white tourist who got hurt riding a bike. I'm not a dumb farang. If they only knew I fell through a roof, they would respect me way more...
I returned the next night to apologize and ask about the cost to repair their roof. They could have easily called the police and gotten a bunch of cash from me but they were surprisingly reasonable considering it is such a tourist island that tends to overcharge for everything. Paid what amounts to about $45. To sum up, I'm fine, no scuba diving in Bali for Christmas and just happy I didn't get more seriously hurt. Enjoy both of your wrists everyone!
No matter how bad things are, they can always get worse.
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