Growing Up In Texas, We All Had One-Story Houses, and We Always Jumped Off The Roof!

My husband grew up in Gibraltar, Michigan, a friendly boating community on Lake Erie about 35 minutes from Detroit. After having our daughter in Manhattan, NY, we decided to move back to Gibraltar with our son on the way. To be closer to grandma and have a backyard. We lived in a typical rental house of about 1,000 sq. feet, a typical one-story home at 30043 Bayview.

We accessed the roof many times. Each year we hung Christmas lights and decorated the backyard for Birthday parties. Climbing up the fence or ladder and quickly jumping off to get back down.

Well, with the job offers in New York looking too good, we were planning to move back to NYC with our daughter and now 3-year-old son.

With the move three weeks away, I was busy packing up the house and the detached garage. I did a lot of DIY-ing and furniture building in Gibraltar, with all the outdoor space compared to NYC.

While outside, I noticed little plants starting to grow in the gutters from the large trees around us dropping seedings in them. Being the DIY-er I am, I hopped up onto the roof the following day with a five-gallon bucket and some gardening gloves. I made my way around the square little house, scooping leaves and sprouts out of the gutters. I dropped down the five-gallon bucket and went to the other side of the roof, where I climbed up. I was excited to get down from the top of the roof and drink something cold with a job well done.

It should have been routine practice having made this jump down from the roof many times. But I guess I got a little too excited when I said to my husband, "everything looks good, right? I can jump down now?" Because he said, "yes!" and I was on my way! and Unfortunately in flight! 

You know in sports when you do something many times, like shooting a free throw, you have everything closely calculated, but sometimes you make that one move, and you immediately know... I FUCKED UP!

Already in mid-air, I knew... Yep, I fucked up, alright! It was definitely a combination of me jumping up, to get down off the roof and secondly not picking a landing spot, but all I could do now was brace for the impact.

With the leg foot hitting the concrete of the driveway next to us and right right foot landing in the grass, I hit the ground like a ton of bricks. Like a mini-bomb went off in my left ankle it snapped all the way through with the bone almost popping out of the skin. Prepared and already sitting up I slammed my hands on both sides up against my ankle and smashed them back together. I told Mike to give me his t-shirt and I put it around the bottom of my foot trying to tie it to my leg I held my foot on. We quickly called the in-laws to come over to watch the kids while we went to the hospital.

Using the shirt to hold my foot on, Mike scooped me up and put me in the car. We raced with our hazards to the hospital and quickly got me in a wheelchair. They immediately noticed the severity and rushed me into a bed, and connected five IVs to save my diving blood pressure. After properly resetting the bones and putting on a hard cast, I had emergency surgery early the following day.

Ten screws, some two inches long and a six-inch titanium plate later, and those doctors had me all fixed up! With a long road of recovery and a fun move ahead, all I can say is... Don't jump up to get off a roof; always pick your landing spot!