Clumsy Cowboys: Stories of slips, stairs and stitches, courtesy of CCHS’s students and staff
FeaturesGeneral Features February 15, 2021 Admin
“At least you have a good story!”
Sometimes, having a weird, dumb or funny story to accompany a painful injury makes the experience a bit better. Many Cowboys have interesting injury stories, but The Lariat went on the hunt for some of the goofiest, weirdest injury stories CCHS’s students and staff have to offer. Here are some of the best ones:
Mailbox Mishap
On January 4, 2021, sophomore Gabriel Herrera was riding his bike on the side of the road when he started approaching a mailbox. He found himself trapped by cars on all sides as he got closer and closer.
“Cars were coming in both directions and I could not swerve out of the way,” Herrera said.
Herrera smacked into the mailbox and flipped off his bike.
“I hit my hand, sprained my hand [and] I hit my leg,” Herrera said. “I only got a rug burn on my leg, so that was fine, but my hand was probably worse.”
Luckily, Herrera’s injuries were relatively minor and he was able to get right back up. The mailbox, however, was in terrible shape.
“I hit the mailbox so the whole metal pole was at a 90-degree angle,” Herrera said. “I was going fast.”
After his collision with the mailbox, Herrera received little sympathy from passersby.
“There [were] four cars there,” Herrera said. “Nobody said anything, nobody was like, ‘Oh, are you okay?’ No. [They] just kept going.”
Herrera knocked on the owner’s door to explain what happened to their mailbox before hopping back on his bike.
Now, several weeks later, Herrera’s injuries have healed.
“Everything is better [now],” Herrera said. “It was just a sprain, so it wasn’t really bad. It was just easy. Leave it alone and it’ll go away.”
Stair Somersault
In her junior year of college at the University of Central Florida (UCF), CCHS teacher Wendy Schauben was at the gym, enjoying a run on the treadmill, when she realized she had lost track of time.
“I realized I needed to rush back to my apartment in order to make it to class on time,” Schauben said.
She quickly rushed outside the gym to a set of stairs.
“If you’ve ever seen the UCF gym, the entrance is on the second floor and you take a large set of stairs outside to get in,” Schauben said.
In a hurry, Schauben started to dash down the stairs.
“I definitely still had my running momentum when I left the gym,” Schauben said. “I start[ed] quickly descending and my momentum definitely betrayed me.”
As she descended, her momentum caused her to trip and fall.
“I took a head-first somersault dive down the stairs and literally rolled two stories down,” said Schauben.
After her slip-up on the stairs, Schauben only had a couple of small cuts and bruises, but she startled everyone that saw her tumble down the stairs. Ultimately, she was late for class.
Bleacher Blunder
Junior Hailey Fuentes had an incident on the bleachers at the CCHS football field her freshman year. During Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) practice, she found herself with free time.
“I wasn’t really that involved [in what was going on] because I didn’t know what we were doing, so they just had us sit on the bleachers to watch,” Fuentes said.
She started to run up and down the bleachers for fun and her foot got caught under the bleacher seat and she fell.
“Everyone around me started laughing,” Fuentes said. “When I got up, I was just laughing and I just started walking away and my friend pointed out, ‘oh, you have a hole in your leg.”
When she looked down, Fuentes saw blood dripping out of a large cut on her leg. She was quickly carried to the trainer’s office for an examination.
“When I went to the trainer’s office, [the person there] was like, ‘Oh, that’s a pretty deep cut,’” Fuentes said. “She goes, ‘You might have to go to the hospital and get stitches.’ So she kind of just put, like, those butterfly little sticker stitches.”
With the hole in her leg somewhat contained, Fuentes called her mother, who drove her to the hospital. There, Fuentes received stitches.
“They just had to sew me up,” Fuentes said. “It’s pretty funny.”
The next school day, Fuentes was back in school, despite her freshly stitched leg. Her battle with the bleachers, however, did force her to sit out her first ROTC competition.
Fracture fiasco(s)
Ever since she was young, CCHS teacher Jacqueline Selan has been clumsy.
“I had to frequently tell my mom after every fall or something, ‘I’m OK,’” Selan said. “Before she would panic and ask me if I’m all right, or if anything happened or anything like that.”
One of her most memorable clumsy stories is the story of how she broke both ankles, four years apart.
Her first fracture happened when she was in college, while she was walking to the bathroom during class.
“I just happened to trip over and I limped to the restroom anyway, because I still needed to go,” Selan said. “That’s when I realized, ‘Oh, I can’t actually walk on it anymore and I need help. I need something.’”
Several years later, she ended up breaking her other ankle in a parking lot.
“I tripped over [a parking block] and fractured my other ankle,” Selan said.
Fortunately, Selan’s experience with her second ankle fracture was a bit easier than her first.
“[The second] time was better because I had a little scooter to help me around with afterward,” Selan said.
All photos courtesy of those pictured
Illustration by Sofie Kahlig
