Falling down the stairs

Depends on how you fall. If your feet slip and you fall back, you slid down on your back. If you fall forward... head to the ground, tumble, and other moves. It can be much worse depending on the stairs as well.

Any particulars?

More details needed here, I think.

With luck, in most cases in the house, say, it's over very quickly, but there's all sorts of stairs - long, short, steep, curved, stone, wood, carpeted, spiral, bend at the bottom, glass at the bottom....

If one is lucky enough to do no damage I suspect the relief is overwhelming, and the best thing to do is push it to back of one's mind and not dwell on it- harder said than done.

Falling down on your side or rear hurts like hell on said rear, elbows, perhaps hips. Overall, you feel battered and winded at the bottom, and shocked and emotionally traumatized. (Sadly, I've experienced this a couple of times. Not sure what that says about me.)

A few years ago I ran out my front door, slipped on a patch of ice on the top step on my porch, and down I went. Ended up sitting on the bottom step (I guess there are four steps in all--you'd think I would know), and I had hit the back of my head--I think on the top step. I guess the initial feeling is one of shock. Whoa--what just happened? Then I guess a person pieces together what happened, then evaluates whether she's hurt. However, if a fall down steps (any kind of fall, I suppose) happens in a public place, then I think often people will first look around to see if they've been seen--they'll do this even before evaluating how badly they're hurt. So, initially shock, then embarrassment (if in public), then evaluation, then pain. Oh, I hit my head, and hey, it hurts.

I fell out of a motel room last summer - lost my footing as I was carrying a large case with a broken handle out of the door and went down like a sack of spuds. The was only a six inch step between the room and the pavement/sidewalk too.

Scuffed my nice navy linen trousers, which I was gutted about until a dark blue iron-on patch (the goes on the inside type) saved them. I also scuffed my elbow and ended up with a big duck egg nearby which took months to be reabsorbed - that didn't bother me.

Nobody saw me (bonus!) and I thankfully escaped relatively unscathed. The trousers are still doing well - haha! I do remember it being like I was moving in slow motion, but not being able to do anything to right myself.

Falling up the stairs is a whole different matter, and something I do regularly (especially when sober).

When I was much younger (about seven or eight?) I fell down the stairs and hit my head on the post. I have a very vague memory of falling and then nothing until I was in an ambulance on the way to hospital. I suspect I was very confused. I ended up with three stitches in my forehead above my left eye and still have a faint scar there.

I fell down the stairs once- a long set of steep hardwood stairs in an old house. I'd had a drink or two, but I wasn't drunk. I was wearing socks so it was slippery. I did the "bum slide"- my feet slipped out from underneath me and I *think* my bum, back, back of my legs hit the stairs. I don't remember that part as much as the feeling of shock, my heart racing, my stomach lurching, and the sensation of pain in my legs.

Before I knew it I was sliding down the stairs. It all happened very quickly but at the same time it also felt like it was happening in slow motion.

I managed to grab on to the railing with both hands and that caused my body to sort of swing towards the railing. I held that position for a couple of seconds (arms feeling very shaky) and then tried to slowly let go and hoist myself up at the same time, but ended up sliding/crashing to the bottom. I wasn't seriously hurt, some bruises showed up the next few days but that was it.

Dominate feelings: embarrassment; weakness, shakiness, shock; pain in my back, bum and legs from hitting the stairs and the floor at the bottom, and pain in my arms from wrenching myself around on the railing.

But mostly embarrassment and that weak, shaky feeling. Not my finest moment, lol.

As a kid (6-ish) I reached to flip on a light and fell down our cellar stairs. About a dozen treads, bare wood. I remember seeing the world spinning and hearing the sharp impact of arms, legs and head striking the wood as I tumbled down. I came to rest in a seated position at the bottom of the stairs facing the steps, my back against the basements cinderblock wall. I remember seeing members of my family at the top of the stairs before losing consciousness. I came to in the neighbor's car on the way to the hospital. Thankfully, there was no permanent damage.


*smoothes unibrow
*flexes glutes

KA-BANG!

I have balance issues, so I've fallen down the stairs many times, sadly. The worst time, as far as injuries go, was about sixteen years ago. I was carrying a heavy suitcase down some carpeted stairs and my feet slipped out from under me. I fell straight down, landed right on my butt, and snapped my tailbone into an L-shape. X-rays confirmed it was broken, but it never did heal right--causes me pain to this day.

Another time, I was carrying my 2-year-old sister down the stairs. I saw the landing, but misjudged the distance, thought it was only one step away, when it was actually two or three, so I took a wide step, expecting the landing to be under my foot. It wasn't. My entire focus was on protecting my sister, so I sort of cradled around her as we fell. She was fine, woke up scared, but uninjured. I turned my ankle. Nothing broken, just a sprain and some bruises.

As far as what it feels like, it usually happens too fast for you to think about anything while you're falling. Once you stop, you're often frozen for a minute, too afraid to move in case you're injured. There's this sick rush of nausea from adrenaline. It protects you from the worst of the pain, at least for a little while. Once the excitement ebbs, you'll start feeling jittery, as well as sore from the bruises and knocks. Even if you didn't damage anything, there's still pain, usually from grabbing for the railing and pulling a muscle or two, or just from tensing up as you fall and straining your back, or shoulders.

I once went head-first down a carpeted wooden stairs when I was younger. (Shouldn't have run, but ah, I was young and my sibling was chasing me.)

It happened so fast, I didn't even realise I had fallen, not even when I hit my head against a metal wastepaper basket that stood at the bottom. Although I do remember thinking it odd to see the banister poles rush by at such an unusual angle. I didn't even make a move to hold on to something.

After the loud BENG I got up and ran away. (Shouldn't have bothered, sibling didn't resume chase, too terrified to be blamed for my fall. )

I didn't have a scratch, not even a headache although metal wastepaper basket was seriously dented. The round form probably deflected me away from the brick wall behind it, which was something I likely wouldn't have walked away from that easily...

I've done the bum bounce down the stairs several times - just looking up a little and leaning slightly backwards in bare feet and my feet slipped from under me.
What everyone else said plus I woke the house - loud thumps as I bounced from step to step. It was an old Victorian house with steep stairs and I went airborne for the last four steps and thump to the floor.
The stairs were carpeted. I had an enormous bruise on my right thigh/buttock which had taken the main impact - I landed slightly canted to the right rather than evenly on both sides so no tailbone injury. Limping for a week while the bruise turned various colours - and a bit too stiff to turn easily to monitor it - I had to reposition a mirror to get a good look (and make sure there was no cut or graze).

Yep I went down a whole flight of hardwood stairs in our old house, thankfully on my backside but I did crack my elbows and the back of my head on the way down.

It was like: shit I've slipped! - BANG! - damn how did I get all the way downstairs? - am I broken? - no? - cool.

I thought it was quite funny once I'd got up and wiped the blood off. My wife... did not.

Some years ago, while I was dog-sitting, the dog woke me up in the middle of the night needing to go "out". It was winter and just a day or two after a huge snow/ice storm, so the ground was fairly slick. Probably because I was half asleep, I grabbed a pair of flip flops (instead of more substantial shoes).

The stairs that go from the porch to the yard were covered in glaze ice. As I lifted one foot and shifted my balance, I lost my footing and fell/slid all the way down onto the concrete pad at the base of the stairs.

My first reaction was just shock. It was like my mind was totally blank. It happened so quickly that I didn't even have a chance to react (by yelling, grabbing something to slow myself down, etc.). The dog, who had already gotten down the stairs, was just staring at me like I was nuts. After a moment, the pain hit me, and I realized that I'd hit my elbows, scraped my knee, and landed pretty hard on my tush. I started moving my arms and legs slowly, to make sure everything still worked. Took care of the dog and went back to bed.

I was pretty sore for a couple of days afterward. I think I bruised my tailbone, because it hurt for about a week to sit ona chair that wasn't cushioned.

flapperphilosopher said:

I'm most curious about the sensation, but for the record my particular character falls down an indoor flight of hardwood stairs-- he's heading down but looking up at someone at the top, while dizzy from something that happened earlier, in emotional turmoil, and in sock feet (great idea), and he breaks his ankle.

Click to expand...

Yeah, there isn't really much of a sensation beyond that feeling you get if you slip on ice on the street - a sort of dropping of the stomach, then you're on the ground and you're not too sure how you got there.

In your character's case, I guess it would be followed by a sharp pain in the ankle although as I say I whacked my head hard enough to split my scalp and didn't know about it until I found the blood in my hair so maybe he wouldn't realise until he tried to stand up?

I fell head first down a carpeted flight of about six wooden stairs. I was wearing my sister's clogs having just ducked outside to grab some grapevines to make a wreath and didn't realize the heel on one of the clogs was loose. It caught on the top stair and I went over, headfirst.

First reaction - 'Oh, sh*t!'

I must have grabbed the stair railing on my way down because I ended up with a huge splinter in the palm of my hand and my arm was sore.

I don't know how I didn't smack my head, but I didn't. Worst damage was a severely bruised knee that had me limping for a week.

I landed at the bottom of the stairs and just lay there for a couple of minutes... gathering my brain back together, if you will. *g* By the time my other sister was able to help me up, things were hurting. I felt a bit rattled, and don't really remember that very fast trip down, but I think it was all over too fast for the adrenaline to kick in (I'm usually a very laid-back and relaxed person).

I did sit down and make the wreath afterward too. *g*