I (was at the time of this post) a healthy 53 year old man. I feel physically fit and capable. I had never broken a bone as far as I know. That is until I had children.

In the last four years I have cracked, sprained, or possibly broken two or three ribs. On two occasions and both times at a children’s playground.

The first time I was coming down a slide with Luke and it got out of control a bit much, I aborted the slide in an effort to keep from crashing my child and landed my back square onto a rounded plastic corner of the slide at full speed. It resulted in a fractured or broken rib, I was buckled over in the worse pain I have ever experiences in my life and my rib cage turned purple. It was both tragic and comic as the best things in life always are.

Cut to approximately three years later and I am standing at the park, minding my own business having just had a fun texting interchange with a good friend. I turned and my right calf caught on the cement bench that was right behind me, just enough to throw me off balance. That sent me backwards in a twisting position, the bench made it impossible for me to catch my fall and I landed full force straight onto a steel rail at hip level directly on my left side rib cage. This time I heard a distinct “crack crack”. I had indeed fractured or broken two ribs this time. I buckled over in pain, unable to breath, blacked out and stayed that way for about 60 seconds. Excruciating to say the least.

I feel much better now after following the suggested info graphic from a WikiHow page on broken ribs

So, just to put this together. The grown man, 53 years old, never broken a bone in his body UNTIL HE HAD CHILDREN!, breaks multiple ribs on two separate occasions, both times at a childrens playground. Yup, that’s just about it.