“Maybe I just dislocated my ankle,” he said.

Jane looked at his foot turned in a completely unnatural position, while Mike lay flat on his back. She said, “No, I think you broke it.”

“But, it doesn’t hurt that much! It would hurt more than this, if I broke it. It doesn’t hurt any worse than a headache.”

About 30 minutes later the ambulance arrived. They put Mike on a backboard and secured his head just in case he had any neck or spine injuries. The paramedic asked him if he wanted a shot, but Mike said, “Naw, it doesn’t hurt that much.” It really didn’t! He had heard all about broken bones all his life, but had never had one before. He expected it to hurt much more than it did.

“I’d take a pill if you have one,” he said.

“No. We don’t carry pills, just injections.”

“I don’t need one then,” he answered. Since it didn’t hurt that much, he began to really believe that he might have just dislocated his ankle. Even the paramedic began to think so, because he had never heard anyone with a broken leg say that it didn’t hurt much.

They arrived at the emergency room. The nurses and doctors joked with him about jumping out of a perfectly good plane. The doctor came in to examine Mike’s leg. Mike said, “I think I just dislocated it.” The doctor looked at the foot, felt around a little bit, pressed on the bone and noticed that it move in a way that it shouldn’t. He pronounced, “Oh you broke it alright! It doesn’t hurt?”

Mike said, “No, not that much.”

Two days later he got out of the hospital using a walker and carrying a steel rod with eleven screws in his right leg. It hurt more now that it did when he broke it. He swore that his first skydive and his last skydive had happened at the same time!