Most people have their own stories of breaking bones, some people more than others. I have only broken a bone one in a lifetime, let me tell you, it's a fun time. Most people when they break their bones are able to recall what happened in the incident. That is not the case for me...

The setting: 8th grade, it was the class field trip right before Christmas break, my class went to an ice rink.

I remember the parts before the ice fairly clearly. My friends and I had never really been to an ice rink before. I remember before we got our skates my friend Adam and I played some guitar hero in the arcade area they had. I remember him kicking my butt. I remember getting my skates. I remember getting on the ice. I remember my friend Jake and I were totally goofing off on the ice, intentionally making ourselves slide on our legs, ice quickly covering our jeans. I remember feeling like I was getting the hang of it. After that, I stop remembering...

The only way that I can really explain what happened is from bits and pieces of what I was told. I was told I accidentally got tripped by some girl (she apparently swept me off my feet haha). However, the main part of this story is: my head hit the ice, and I got knocked out cold (pun intended).

The next thing I remember is everything around me was a blur. I could see the fuzzy faces of my friends and fellow classmates checking to see if I was okay, or at least to see if I was still alive. My teacher kept on trying to hold my head up because barely-conscious-me kept wanting to fall forward, and every time he did this it felt like the wall behind me was a bowling ball and my head was the pin. However, at the moment I doubt I could even tell him this. It took me a while to realize that maybe he might stop if I could hold my head up myself. My mom rushed to the rink faster than someone could call an ambulance, and she drove me to the hospital. I remember tasting my breakfast pancakes for the second time that day. Yes. Pancakes. I'm sorry.

Once we got to the hospital I had fully regained consciousness and was fully aware that my head hurt like crazy! I got a CT scan and the doctors found out that I had managed to have my skull fractured, right down the back of my head. My mom was worried sick, I was in pain, and on top of that, I now pretty much knew that I was not going to be playing laser tag at my friend's party the next day. However, I was lucky.

I may not have felt lucky at the time, but I was. I was lucky because the fracture extended to just barely above the base of my skull, and I had no internal bleeding or brain damage. I had been knocked unconscious and was in a lot of pain, but I was able to recover, although it took a really long time.

I can look back and be glad that this happened. It gives me a funny story to tell and has been a very effective conversation piece in some of my classes to this day. Some of my friends even told me that I changed after hitting that ice. It actually did happen right around one of the biggest turning points in my life, but that is a different story.

To this day, that is still the first and only time I have been ice skating.