Walking with a Permanent Limp?

[TheIT]

What sort of injury would cause a person to walk with a permanent limp?

One of the characters in my fantasy novel is the survivor of a shipwreck in which he was injured such that he walks with a permanent limp. I'm trying to figure out what sort of injury would make sense and what sort of limitations he would have. Perhaps his leg was broken and healed incorrectly? Would he be in constant pain? Would the pain subside as the injury heals? I need him eventually able to move around with assistance like a cane or walking staff.

Note this is a pre-industrial world with magical healing, but the character didn't reach the healers in time for them to help him.

Thanks in advance!

[CasualObserver]

Loss of part of a foot would cause a limp. I think this is a (later, clearly) painless permanent injury, although there is the phantom pain to consider. Also, whether the compensation for the limp causes pain itself, such as back pain. Perhaps part of the foot gets bitten off by some beastie, or MC gets a cut during the shipwreck and later must amputate a badly infected portion to prevent death by blood poisoning.

[semilargeintestine]

It depends on how it heals. My girlfriend's cousin broke the head of her femur completely off in a horse riding accident, and aside from the giant scar, you wouldn't be able to tell she ever hurt it. I broke my foot twice in the same place within a couple of months, but I have no limp. Like CasualObserver says, I think something more permanent would be in order.

[Fullback]

I herniated a disc in my lower back by doing absolutely nothing except reaching for something. I though I had just pulled a muscle, but by the next morning, the pain was excruciating. I passed out while shaving.

I couldn't get out of bed for 2 weeks and spent six months walking gingerly and slowly with a cane. It has left me with a permanent limp that I didn't notice until I saw a video of myself.

There would have been no treatment back then and it would be something that would affect almost everything your character did.

Good luck with your story!

[Greenify13]

I have a limp, caused by breaking my hips repeatedly... Having a limp can mess with and can cause pain in the knees, back, ankles, feet, muscles and even hips. Of course this depends on the severity of the limp, and your 'reliance on it'. If you rely on a limp, to prevent pain, it will cause pain elsewhere.
Trust me.

[TerzaRima]

I was going to say, a traumatic hip dislocation which was not treated would be both painful and cause a limp. In the modern world, one of the most common causes of this kind of injury would be a car accident at high speed. I would imagine a shipwreck could generate similar forces, but I don't know the details of your story.

[sunandshadow]

A permanent limp can be caused by an important leg muscle being cut, torn, or pierces with debris, then healing with a big knot of scar tissue such that the muscle cannot stretch normally. This would probably not hurt much, with the exception of a sudden muscle cramp or maybe bad weather. Also, knee injuries are a common cause of limping - this kind hurts whenever the person needs to walk anywhere.

[Jersey Chick]

My husband doesn't have a limp, but he does have an odd way of walking as the result of a severely broken leg (sustained in a home plate collision in college.) His foot turns in slightly and it gives him this weird little gait that kind of looks like a limp, but doesn't look like a limp - if that makes any sense. AFAIK, it doesn't cause him any pain, but he does tend to wear through his left shoes very quickly because his foot comes down on the sole weird.

[RJK]

Any poorly mended long bone would cause the damaged leg to be shorter than the other. This would cause a limp and eventually pain. I don't know when orthopedic shoes were developed but perdhaps crude ones were made in the middle ages. The painful limp would be reduced with the use of a cane.

[jeseymour]

I tore ligaments in my knee in a stupid skiing accident. It hurts all the time, worse when the weather is bad. I don't limp much, but you can sometimes tell, maybe a shorter stride on that side. It doesn't cause any weakness.

My MC was shot in the leg, shattered his femur, it's held together with plates and pins, this gives him a permanent limp, and he has used a cane now and then. He thinks he's a tough guy though, so he doesn't use the cane unless he absolutely has to. He can't really run, and he's in pain all the time.

[Captshady]

I dislocated my foot 180° while breaking my ankle 3 places. I had surgery and was laid up in a cast for 6 months. I walk with a permanent limp.

[TheIT]

Thanks, everyone, this helps. One point I forgot to mention: the effects of the injury have to be bad enough in the short term that he has to give up his dream of becoming a ship's captain.

Originally I was leaning towards having him simply falling from the rigging and getting his leg caught which would probably mean hip dislocation, but I want to up the stakes. Now I think the ship got caught in a storm and sank. He was first mate, so he'll take some of the blame for the wreck. He enters the story some time after he was injured. He's down on his luck and still in pain, but trying to rebuild his life.

So now I'm leaning towards him breaking the femur and having it heal such that the injured leg is shorter. That'll take him a while to get used to but eventually he should be mobile.

Fullback, ouch, I hear you about herniated disks. CasualObserver, I hadn't thought of losing part of the foot. Neat idea, but I don't want this character turning into Long John Silver. :D

[Evaine]

In Flambards by KM Peyton, which would probably count as a YA book now, one character falls from a horse while hunting and breaks his leg. He then secretly walks up and down on the healing leg so it will heal stiff, and he need never ride to the hunt again.
I think it was in An Edge of the Cloud (something like that) that he had surgery to correct the limp, as it was interfering with his piloting of early biplanes.

[stormie]

Don't know if this will help, but I agree with the loss of a foot. My father lost his leg from below the kneecap from being shot in the thigh during WWII. Gangrene set in and they amputated. I remember the leg the gov't gave him back in the '60s (don't know what it looked like before then) was heavy and made of wood. It was shaped like a human leg and foot and strapped on over his kneecap. He walked with a slight limp.

[Deb Kinnard]

Nerve damage in the hip joint would also do it. Since in your era he may have been inadequately treated, what about the following scenario: his hip dislocated (it takes a lot of trauma to accomplish this, so I'm thinking maybe a fall from the rigging), the dislocation was reduced but inexpertly, resulting in nerve damage. There is some numbness along the outside of his leg, along with the limp.

[RedScylla]

I ruptured my hip socket--jammed the femur head right up into my pelvis in a skiing accident. Although it doesn't cause me a lot of pain now, it left my right leg slightly shorter than the left. If I wear shoes without a lift in the right, I have a slight limp. And I'd think without the benefit of modern medical science, I'd probably have a much worse limp.

[oneblindmouse]

I know someone who was in ankle chains for many years and only able to hobble about. This resulted in a severe loss of muscle mass and deformed calves. He now walks with a limp.

[ideagirl]

What sort of injury would cause a person to walk with a permanent limp?

One of the characters in my fantasy novel is the survivor of a shipwreck in which he was injured such that he walks with a permanent limp. I'm trying to figure out what sort of injury would make sense and what sort of limitations he would have. Perhaps his leg was broken and healed incorrectly?

That would work. If the foot healed in a deformed way, or the leg healed in such a way that it was slightly shorter than the other leg, that could certainly cause a limp. I wouldn't know about the pain, though. I suspect it would at least hurt in certain kinds of weather (e.g. damp), but I don't know about constantly.

[TheIT]

Thanks again! I'm still seesawing between the character breaking the leg and hip dislocation. Both seem to work for my story purposes.

How long would it take him to recover from the injury? He enters my story after he's gotten back to civilization after the shipwreck, healed enough to be mobile, and has given up on going back to sea. Six months to a year sound about right?

[GeorgeK]

I dislocated my foot 180° while breaking my ankle 3 places. I had surgery and was laid up in a cast for 6 months. I walk with a permanent limp.

skiing?
motorcycle wreck?
rodeo?
fall off a ladder?
tick off a bear? No, not the bear, there'd be no foot to fix.

[Hummingbird]

Six months to a year sounds about right to me or much longer depending on how well your character heals. Here are a few articles I found if you wanted to take a look. :)

http://www.nascar.com/2008/news/features/06/24/future.star.jlofton/index.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE5DD1F31F93BA15756C0A9649582 60
http://www.pebforum.com/air-force-discussion/9906-broken-femur.html

I was also going to suggest nerve damage (I was beaten to it. :D), but if you wanted it could also be by damage to the head or spine. That way his leg could be partially paralyzed.

[BellaRush]

I dislocated my foot 180° while breaking my ankle 3 places. I had surgery and was laid up in a cast for 6 months. I walk with a permanent limp.

This is pretty much what I did. Fractured my ankle in three places, ruptured all the tendons and ligaments, surgery to try and put it all back together. In my case though I had a cast for a week, was on crutches for a month and expected to walk after that. I've had two more surgeries. I try not to limp, but have a lot of pain and often can't hide it! My one leg is shorter than the other (except for a brief while after my chiropractor sorts me out!) and my calf on the injured leg is a full inch smaller than the normal leg.

In my case, I came off a horse. :D I was back on one before I could get a boot on that foot again...much to my mother's horror.;)

[CarolSanDiego]

Thanks again! I'm still seesawing between the character breaking the leg and hip dislocation. Both seem to work for my story purposes.

How long would it take him to recover from the injury? He enters my story after he's gotten back to civilization after the shipwreck, healed enough to be mobile, and has given up on going back to sea. Six months to a year sound about right?


I'll throw in a physical therapist's two cents. Either of your proposed scenarios would work, though a broken femur is much more likely. A hip dislocation is pretty hard to pull off (ha ha) and would likely be accompanied by other trauma: broken bones, nerve damage, torn muscles, definitely torn ligaments....

Six months to a year is a reasonable recovery time, and without a good physical therapist :) it is possible that he could still have a limp. Bone healing takes about 12 weeks on average, but recovering full or close to full function can take longer, depending on the severity of the injury, the kind of shape the person was in beforehand, etc. After breaking a femur, you could have one leg shorter than the other, loss of full knee range of motion (a knee that won't straighten causes a limp), loss of hip range (if the hip can't extend fully you'll limp), or a few other issues that lead to a limp. It's possible that he wouldn't have pain and could still function almost fully, but occasional flare ups of pain would be likely, as would problems manifesting in other areas (hip pain, back pain, etc.). Wouldn't have to be disabilitating, unless that helps your story.

[TheIT]

Time to get back on the seesaw again... ;)

All the responses are forcing me to rethink this character's back story, so that's good. I was originally thinking that the injury was the sole reason for this character giving up his life as a sailor, but now I'm thinking it was also due to politics or some sort of intrigue. He's made enemies over the years, and they would have seized on the shipwreck as proof of his incompetence to be captain even though they can't prove he did anything wrong. The injury was the last straw.

Question about walking with aid: cane vs. crutch vs. staff? I can see that he'll need to use a cane or crutch right after he was injured because he won't be able to put much weight on the leg. After the leg is healed, what would he need? If the leg can bear weight, would a staff be sufficient for him to keep his balance? I'd like to have him carry a quarterstaff both as a walking aid and for self-defense.

[CarolSanDiego]

A staff would work fine. Plenty of people walk with a limp and don't need any assistive device. But if you want him carrying something, any of those three could do the trick. I won't bore you with a discussion on the advantages/disadvantages of each one. Just go with what works for the story in this case, especially considering it's fantasy, so our typical equipment might not apply.

[Shwebb]

I hate to bring this up, but I can't quite help it. So please accept my apology should this question prove to be stupid:

why would the injury keep him from being a captain? Because we are already familiar with the "peg leg" pirate captain figures. Losing a part of a leg didn't slow them down, it would seem.

[TheIT]

I hate to bring this up, but I can't quite help it. So please accept my apology should this question prove to be stupid:

why would the injury keep him from being a captain? Because we are already familiar with the "peg leg" pirate captain figures. Losing a part of a leg didn't slow them down, it would seem.

No need to apologize for bringing up a potential plot hole. If anyone spots something I might have overlooked in one of my request for information threads, please tell me!

Agreed, the injury doesn't seem to be enough to cause him to turn away from being a sailor. That's why I decided the ship should sink, too. :D

So the new story of how he got injured was that there was a terrible shipwreck in which the ship was destroyed and most of the crew was killed. He was the ship's first mate and the highest ranked survivor, therefore he became scapegoat for the whole mess. His enemies seized on the incident to blacken his reputation, and because he was laid up recovering from the injury, he couldn't fight against the accusations until the damage was done. He'd been in line for a captaincy but that opportunity vanished. It'll be years until he rebuilds his reputation enough, and he's not a young man. Also, there's some other political nastiness which touches on him, too.

When he recovers enough from the injury to be mobile, he decides it's time to get away from all the mess and start a new life. He enters the story in a mountain village about as far away from the ocean as possible where he's trying to buy musical instruments. He's planning on becoming a storyteller and bard.

[2Wheels]

Well there could have been a big storm see, and while being thrown around on the deck he ruptured his achilles tendon, and also suffered a head injury which affected his vestibular apparatus, so he nows suffers from severe motion sickness when on the sea ... phew!