Taking a tumble

Fishing line? really?

We’re in the third week of track! Whoo hoo! I’m the coach. I’ve got two parent assistant coaches. Thirty-four 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th graders have signed up. It’s like herding cats.

So far I am aware of 3 times students have taken a tumble. I was running right next to the boy that fell today. Running along and boop… suddenly he’s face first on the trail. Gets up. “I’m fine!” Knees skinned. Bloody knees. At least it didn’t sound bad. Yesterday I was in front of him as we ran back to campus and I heard the hard whack of his knee on cement. Oh… I was surprised he walked that off. It sounded icky.

The other boy falls occasionally. That’s just the way it is. I do have some basic medical supplies in my pack. Just in case.

I try to make sure to tell the parents about the falls when they pick up their kids. So far the parents just nod their head and say something like “yup, that’s my kid”. Today the parent was like “he just loves track!” Well okay… but stop falling, please!

There’s a little lake near the school we run around. It’s about 600 meters around, which is a fairly handy distance. Long enough to be interesting. Open enough that the coaches can see everything that’s going on. It’s a windy little trail. It’s nice.

We warm up by running slowly, together around the lake once. I run at the front and scope out potential issues. Who is here? Any sketchy folks? Oh! There’s a stick! - and I move it. Today there were more people than usual but nothing scary. Just a dad and two kids fishing and an older later with her dog. I’ve seen her before. She saw us coming and scrambled to pick up her little dog. Mentally I apologized for the inconvenience we were causing.

After the easy lap I tell them they need to do 2 laps at a pace that pushes them and they’re off. Herd of cats. I start running with them but they are pretty speedy and I am not - especially not at the beginning. I’ll catch them later, I think.

I turn the bend and there’s a big pack of my team standing at the edge of the trail looking down at the muddy bank 4’ below. There are at least 2 people in the mud but I can’t see who. I run up. First thing I see is a 7th grader down there and I think, “Alright - who pushed him off the bank?” Then I see that he’s helping the older lady (the one with a dog). There’s also another lady down there trying to help but they can’t get her to stand up. She’s just on her back in the mud. Lucid. Apparently in no pain. She’s just too heavy for the - rather small - 7th grader and the other woman. So I climb down into the mud. I tell my runner he can go up the bank. I tell the students to go ahead and do their laps. They slowly get going. I reach down to help the lady but even if we lift her up she’s not really coordinated enough to get her feet under her hips. It’s kind of comical really. Eventually we get her on her feet and I look down and I see that there is fishing line wrapped around her ankles. Well, that’s no good! But then she starts trying to climb up the slope anyway. Now one of my helper coaches is there. She and someone else grab her arms and they just basically drag her up the slope over the iceplant on her belly. She laughs and yells to them to let go and then she’s just laying there… and slowly starts drifting back down. So then I grab her to keep her up. Phew. Eventually we get her on her feet and I am able to get down to unwrap that pesky fishing line. She asks where her dog is and thankfully, one of my runners had been keeping track of the little fella.

The lady says the dog is blind and tends to walk close to the edge and this time she just got too close. I worry that maybe she was walking close to the edge to give my pesky team room. I hope that’s not what it was.

Not everyone that was at the lake ran over to help. But a few did. And most of the track team was ready to do something. One boy got down in the mud to try to lift a woman that has got to be twice his weight. Another boy made sure her dog didn’t wander off. It’s all good. I hope the lady is okay.

I threw the fishing line away.

In retrospect it might have been better to call 911, but that’s a hard call. She didn’t seem to be injured at all - just needed to get back up that darned slope. Oh, by the way - she said she’s 82, I think. Pretty tough.

Here’s a rendition of the scene I whipped up.

And the lake. The little red x that shows where I diverted from the path is the location of the incident.