The fall from heights

Grisly spinal injuries sustained by falls from high structures sadly have not been given its due attention

Acrophobia can be defined as an extreme or irrational fear of heights. About 2% to 5% of the general population seem to suffer from acrophobia. I have to admit that I do have acrophobia right from my childhood, which has ostensibly worsened in the recent years. Of late, a new-found, unnamed variant of acrophobia seems to be bothering me. I feel extremely uneasy, apprehensive and fearful when I see people working at high structures precariously. This, I presume to be an occupational hazard of witnessing grisly spinal injuries due to falls from heights. The couple were in their early twenties and a young giggling infant was clinging on to the lady’s crumbled sari. The thin, fragile young lady listened to me with keen ears and folded hands in reverence as I talked to her. Her husband had been admitted with a spinal injury. A mason by occupation, he had sustained the injury when he tripped from the second floor of a building under construction. The injury had left him paralysed below the hip with lost sensations and incontinent bladder and bowels. Dutifully as a spine surgeon, I had fixed his dislocated spine at the earliest and an extensive rehabilitation process had helped him to be independent, but on a wheelchair. Despite the best outcomes of surgery and rehabilitation three months down the line, they were still aggrieved that he was not able to walk independently. Despite multiple sessions of counselling, they refused to accept the sheer reality. I explained to them again the irreversible nature of the injury and our best effort was to make him independent on a wheelchair and a ‘normal’ life would not be possible anymore. His eyes welled up at the reality of not being able to pursue his previous job, and the loss of his stature as the bread winner. The humongous job of supporting the family financially and emotionally has now fallen onto the already fragile wife, who had multiple questions writ on her quivering face. “What is my husband’s mistake in this injury? He is not a drunkard who injured himself on the road. He is not a rash driver of a vehicle involved in a fatal accident. He has been a caring and responsible man who was doing his job as a mason.”