paralyzing injury

-Threw him out the window, a la GRRM
-Ran him over with a horse-drawn cart (I actually know someone paralyzed by being run over by a tractor as a toddler)
-launched him with a trebuchet (this one may be too silly)
-stomped by a horse

Falling off a horse would do it - and a prince at that age could have a pony or be starting riding lessons, esp. if the older brother was supervising or encouraging it.

Falling down a stone staircase might do the trick. Might be a little too close to fatal, though.

They wouldn't have to be alone for there to be an accident with a horse or horse and cart - older child simply spooks the horse, and it takes off - stepping on the brother (or pulling a cart over him) before anyone can react. It can look like an accident - or not - depending on what the story needs.

Here's a classic for horses that would work pretty well for your story. Little brother is just beginning to ride a pony, and is still being led by one of the servants. Older brother helps to saddle the horse and slips a burr underneath the saddle blanket. When little brother gets on horse, he presses down on saddle, causing the burr to dig into the horse.

Horse starts bucking, sending little brother flying through the air. Little brother lands on back, shattering back.

Advantage is older brother is a crud for pulling a joke on his little brother, but the consequences didn't match the older brother's expectations. This is a classic practical joke played by cowboys since I don't know when. And older brother can learn about it from overhearing some of the knights talking about doing this to someone.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

The late Christopher Reeve had a fall from his horse which paralysed him.

I know such things are serious but I had a great uncle who slipped on a cabbage leaf in a local market. Family history says he sort of went up in the air and then landed on his back. He could not walk properly after the accident. As a child it seemed so funny that a cabbage leaf could harm a grown up. Maybe the elder kid does something silly that causes harm - like putting a cabbage leaf in the way of the younger kid. It would be funny until the severity of the injury is realized.

Or, if you decide against horses, how about some sort of childish horseplay? Annoying little brother climbs up in something, a rock or a table, and starts hollering 'I'm the king of the castle' or 'Can't catch me' or similar, and the older brother, annoyed by the little brat, impulsively gives him a shove. Sure, he meant to do it, but he never meant for the brat to fall wrong, and hurt himself so badly.

Might the older fall/jump out of a tree onto the younger?

Any fall has the potential to be paralyzing. All it takes is the right physics of the angle. One need not 'break' a vertebrae either. A compression injury such as Christopher Reeve's will do it as well.

So, a fall backwards - a simple playful push into a horse trough, or washing well - can result in the head striking the back edge. I know someone paralyzed by falling backwards into a rain filled ditch. Doesn't have to be a 'hard' edge either.

I've spent the better part of two decades falling off horses on purpose - and it's the biggest fear I have. You can NEVER be sure how a horse is going to move once you begin to fall.

Two questions:
I thought 3 year olds were made of rubber. They fall all the time, but their bones are so flexible, they rarely break anything. Being pushed from a cart and having the following cart run over him sounds like the most reasonable injury.

In medieval times, would they have the capability to care for someone who was paralyzed? If the person choked on his food, he'd probably die right there.

RJK said:

Two questions:
I thought 3 year olds were made of rubber. They fall all the time, but their bones are so flexible, they rarely break anything. Being pushed from a cart and having the following cart run over him sounds like the most reasonable injury.

In medieval times, would they have the capability to care for someone who was paralyzed? If the person choked on his food, he'd probably die right there.

Click to expand...

Yes, three year olds and toddlers and infants can all suffer paralyzing spinal cord injuries. Once in a while, a baby is actually paralyzed during birth.

And yeah, it's true that there are about a million things that can go wrong (foremost in my mind would be decubitus ulcers, autonomic dysreflexia, bladder infection, or lung infection), but on the other hand I would think that a lucky few would survive such an injury even without medical care. (But a paraplegic or quadriplegic would not be any more likely to choke on food than anybody else!)

considering the medical technology of your time frame, it wouldn't even necessarily need to be a spinal cord injury. A bad enough pelvic break would make your character a cripple without paralyzation.

In such a setting, paralysis would almost certainly mean death. Moving the injured individual, not understanding the nature of such injuries and, most importantly, social attitudes meant a short life after such an injury. Until very recent times, such an individual was viewed as unwhole and damaged. A burden.
The complications arising from such an injury are legion and without understanding how to deal with them, death was fairly swift. Most, in fact, did not survive the initial injury. If you did, skin, bladder, respiratory and bowel complications would end your life in short order. Without knowing how to stimulate bowel activity, impaction will kill you in a few weeks. A good kidney infection won't take much longer. Skin breakdown is just as fatal.
Even if you did survive, you'd be a severe burden on your family and you'd likely be disposed of soon. It has only been since world war II, really, that spinal cord injuries were studied much at all and only since the 1960s that there were enough survivors to begin to get some understanding of the situation. Even today, research in mobility is limited in scope and volume.
Attitudes toward disabilities in general are still pretty barbaric in many parts of the world I've worked with folks from South America who have survived spinal cord injuries, teaching them to make skin protection cushions from cardboard. The technology to keep them alive just doesn't exist.
There were undoubtedly cases of people surviving for a while, however, they would have been exceptionally rare and certainly limited to people of means who had access to care. Nurses and such to tend to the needs of such a person.
Even leaving a bedroom would be unlikely. Any rudimentary home built wheelchairs, or bath chairs, were cumbersome, heavy and poorly maneuverable.
A more likely scenario might be someone suffering a severely broken leg that left them with a permanent walking impairment. The odds of surviving any type of spinal cord injury are practically impossible. It just didn't happen.

EG

Of course, in fiction, ANYTHING is possible.
If you are set on a spinal injury, the most likely survivor would be young and suffer an incomplete injury at the lumbar level, leaving a partial paralysis below the waist. With an incomplete injury, one might still have some sensation intact, control over bowel and bladder, leaving the person with weakness and poor coordination while walking. Such a person might make it through with some home made crutches or even a staff.

Send me a PM if you want some nitty gritty on life with a spinal cord injury. I can give you as many stories as you want.

EG