h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have a scar caused when I was a child. One boy threw a tyre iron at another boy, the second ducked... it hit me in the face.

Apparently there was a good deal of blood, but I can not remember the incident at all first hand.

Pimms

How do kids live to grow up?

My only child was in a traffic accident a month before his 16th birthday. It was a Friday, at the end of June, and his last music lesson till Fall. He was running late because he'd been out with his friends all afternoon, and came home to get his music and headed for the door. I told him to change his shoes. He had on steel-toed combat boots, his style at the time, and I wanted him to change to his runners. He got short tempered with me and stalked out the door, got on his bike and took off.

I heard an ambulance, and immediately thought of Harley. Not 15 minutes later our neighbour came and told me he'd had an accident on Main Street. When I got there my child was being strapped to a backboard, had a big padded collar around his neck and was out cold.

I can tell you what hell is! He'd rode his bike across a cross-walk, 3 lanes of traffic stopped and he went head-first into the side of a van.

After being told he could have brain damage, or could be paralized from the neck down, and 2 CAT-scans later, all he and was a major concussion and a broken collar bone. He was in a coma for 32 hours.

It took a long healing time, in which his co-ordination was the major problem. Now its 9 years later. There's nothing wrong with his brain, or his limbs. He still has a high IQ, he's an artist, and he as a wonderful profession. He has no sense of balance, and that's the only legacy for stupidity. That and there's finally a traffic light at "Harley's corner" in Selkirk.

Oh yes. And the combat boots? The leather was pealed off both toes. Its a good thing he wouldn't change his shoes!