Article May 23, 2011 Issue

Daughter’s jaw quickly healed

By Kenneth Brack

Our two daughters grew up in rural New England. They loved climbing in trees, riding horses, and playing rough sports like hockey and soccer. Bumps and bruises were ordinary occurrences and quickly forgotten.

One day, when my younger daughter was seven, she was riding her bicycle down the hill our home was set on. The brakes were applied by pushing backward on the pedals, but when the wheels began to spin too fast, she was unable to put her feet on the pedals to slow down. From inside the house, I saw her as she flew over the handle bars and fell, landing on her face on the dirt road.

My wife was standing outside, and she immediately went to pick her up as I came out of the house. The same thing had happened to me when I was a boy, and my first thought was to comfort my daughter, assuming she would recover quickly. As her mother carried her into the house in her arms, I noticed that my daughter’s jaw appeared to be displaced.