# On Horseback with a Broken Back



## Sir Kieran (Jul 29, 2014)

I guess this falls under both Research and Writing Questions, but I thought this was the better place for it. 

In my novel, my four main characters are captured by enemies and sentenced to death by being pushed off a cliff. The first one falls and lands on a crag thirty feet down. Everyone is quickly saved by external help, and the fallen character is helped back up. He has a broken back, and they are essentially in the middle of nowhere. Is it possible that he is able to ride a horse? Would be slung across the horse's back? Would there be absolutely no hope for him? Should the other character's mercy-kill him? Should he die instead of landing on a crag? 

I'd love to hear some opinions!


----------



## Caged Maiden (Jul 29, 2014)

my friend was thrown from a horse and broke both her wrists and herniated two disks in her back.  She was pretty incapacitated for the better part of six months.  Now, spinal injuries are a variable thing, I've known people with no feeling from the naval down from minor injuries and I've known people who walk around every day for fifty years with herniated disks that should cripple them.

I would say that a much better injury would be a disk injury, than a "broken" back.  Disk herniations can occur from minor things.  One of my friends (at 24) sneezed while bent over a sink brushing her teeth and herniated two disks.  For the most part, she was fine, but the injury caused her trouble with mobility in certain ways.  The thing is, as soon as your disk is ruptured or your spinal column is shifted slightly, that's where you begin pinching the nerves responsible for major parts of the body (like the legs). 

Now I have a neck problem where I pinch nerves (due to swelling in the muscles after a stint of bad posture and loads of typing) and I lose feeling in my left hand and my vision (yep, I go completely blind in the center of my vision and am left with only my periphery for about 30-40 minutes an episode).  It's darn scary, but as soon as it passes, I have emotional and maybe psychological effects too, like panic and anxiety (probably from being incapacitated for nearly an hour).

Hope that pile of personal experiences gives you something useful.  I wouldn't break your character's back and have him get on a horse.  I think plausibility may come into question and I'd wonder as the author whether it's worth it.  Create some other damage that has the right effect you're going for.  Herniated disk or two sounds like it might be everything you need.


----------



## skip.knox (Jul 29, 2014)

As a reader I would also wonder why the people pushing didn't bother to check their work! Granted, they might have to go the long way round to get below, but it seems weird they would shove then just walk away. The smarter move would be to have a fellow at the bottom with a sword, just to make sure.


----------



## Malik (Jul 30, 2014)

If the spine itself is broken, then any movement at all can be fatal. It's possible for the spine (one or more vertebrae) to be broken but the spinal cord to still be intact; movement, however -- especially repetitive movement -- will cause the edges of the broken bones to saw through the spinal cord. When that happens, cancel Christmas. This is why, when there's any chance of a spinal injury, we break out a backboard and a cervical collar and strap the victim down tight.


----------



## Fyle (Jul 30, 2014)

Caged Maiden said:


> my friend was thrown from a horse and broke both her wrists and herniated two disks in her back.  She was pretty incapacitated for the better part of six months.  Now, spinal injuries are a variable thing, I've known people with no feeling from the naval down from minor injuries and I've known people who walk around every day for fifty years with herniated disks that should cripple them.



This is why i have zero interest in riding a horse ever. I thought this the moment I heard about Christoper Reeves. No way.



skip.knox said:


> As a reader I would also wonder why the people pushing didn't bother to check their work! Granted, they might have to go the long way round to get below, but it seems weird they would shove then just walk away. The smarter move would be to have a fellow at the bottom with a sword, just to make sure.



This makes sense to me. The whole premise seems odd to me… waste of horses too when they could just kill the main characters and use the horses?


----------



## Caged Maiden (Jul 30, 2014)

yeah, I mean, life or death situation aside, the guy isn't moving with a broken back.  Make it a concussion, an injury of some sort he can live through that creates complications later, like a hematoma, blunt force trauma, even a compound fracture to his arm or something.  Have things dislocated and have to be tended to ASAP but after escape.  Injuries are really painful and often in Hollywood people continue running or whatever through things no human would run through.  TV has a way of distorting the truth in such a way unless a person has seen evidence to the contrary, they tend to believe what they see.  In Legend of the Seeker, her sister gives birth on the TV show and gets right up and keeps running.  I was like... NO. Way.  With my first one, I could barely move for a couple days (fair enough the next three were a piece of cake, but stories of women having their babies in a field and getting back to work are FALSE.  And that's a pretty natural process, not usually life-threatening.  What about the fact that you bleed for six weeks after giving birth and it increases hugely if you do anything more strenuous than get dressed and do the dishes?  haha.  People have a very unrealistic concept of how little blood loss can result in result in weakness, disorientation, unconsciousness.  IN Hollywood, heroes spill gallons and beat the bad guy.

Pain is a pretty subjective thing, some people being incapacitated by a relatively small amount of discomfort while others can take a lot of trauma and keep kicking, but I'd think a broken back is debilitating in any scenario.  It would be the rare occasion for a person to even get up at that point, let alone do any sort of travel, even to escape pursuers.

I know a few people who have broken their necks or backs and the only thing their stories all have in common is that it has affected them greatly for the remainder of their lives.  I guess the scary thing is how many times I've run into it in my conversations with other people.  Who knew it was so common an injury?  I can only guess it's the swift medical care they received, that made them live and function somewhat normally thereafter.  In a Medieval (horse-riding, so I'm assuming) setting, I think a broken back is a pretty certain death sentence.


----------



## Fyle (Jul 30, 2014)

Ya, what Caged Maiden said. 

With a book I think the realism is held to a higher standard than TV/movies.

If Tyrion Lannister took that slash to the face and then smiled at Podrick and was like "You got him bro! Look out behind you!" I think we would have an issue with the scene.


----------



## Trick (Jul 30, 2014)

My father is post-polio; born in the same year that the vaccine became popular but just missing the cut off in his state for it being really pushed. He was also parked on by a truck when he was six, crushing several lower vertebra. He's had a life time of surgeries, including ten spinal taps from top to bottom in a very short time. He's is one tough SOB but there's a reason he parks in the handicap section. When his vertebra were crushed, he couldn't move a muscle. Cops saw him lying in a parking lot and, according to his memory, carefully put him in the backseat of the cruiser and rushed him to a hospital. This was 1956 but compared to the middle ages it might as well have been 3056. The availability of medical care today lulls us into a state where we think you can come back from anything but death. That is dead wrong. A broken back from a thirty foot drop onto rocks where you are then moved and jostled is a death sentence even today. Now, a cracked vertebra or a sprained back might not be the same but, depending on the person, might feel just as serious.Look back at the character and decide whether or not they have a pain tolerance that can handle something serious and then make the injury less life threatening and you should be in the clear. 

My father obviously handles pain like a champ but I am no better than average if not worse. Life experience lends to pain tolerance and, even without it, some people simply feel pain less acutely or are tougher by nature (and nurture).

Just my $0.02


----------



## CupofJoe (Jul 30, 2014)

Almost any injury will cause temporary swelling. 
An injury near or on the spine could cause enough swelling that would give the appearance and effects of a broken back [paralysis etc] but with time and rest would lessen and maybe go way. I don't know but can guess what lasting ramifications there might be; weakness and sensitivity at least and a real fear of having it happen again. 
Like CM I have a neck injure with similar physical and psychological effects. The phrase "once bitten, twice shy" dramatically under sells the wariness you have ever after... to this day I try not to carry heavy items in my right hand alone as that _might_ set it off and my injury happened 25 years ago...


----------



## Fyle (Jul 30, 2014)

I am curious to read this scene and what kind of king/ruler etc. would command that type of death sentence to be carried out.

Can you please post this scene in showcase.

Thanks! Anyone with me?


----------



## Sir Kieran (Jul 30, 2014)

Fyle said:


> I am curious to read this scene and what kind of king/ruler etc. would command that type of death sentence to be carried out.
> 
> Can you please post this scene in showcase.
> 
> Thanks! Anyone with me?



Thanks for the advice everyone! At Fyle's request, I'll try to get the scene up in the showcase. So, I think that with the grievous injury I have in mind, he wouldn't really be able to safely continue the journey: I'm talking walking down mountains, riding across fields on horseback, and evading enemies. Sure, it would create conflict for the other MCs to deal with him and struggle with not leaving him behind or mercy-killing him, but I honestly don't think he would last that long. 

I could always lessen the injury as some people have suggested, or just plain kill him off. 

I loved the opinions and stories you guys gave, and will always welcome more! I'll head over to the Showcase to drop some more info. Thanks again everyone!


----------



## SeverinR (Jul 30, 2014)

It is possible the injured feels no pain. Nerve injuries can do that.
It would be possible to move a person with a broken back, probably extreme pain, and the spinal cord will most likely be cut.
I doubt anyone could ride across a saddle with a broken back that causes pain. When riding across a horse, the vertebre are twisted and open, when the horse walks the person in the saddle rock back and forth. The spine would flex and twist with every step, even worse when the lower extremities can react and absorb some of the shock due to paralysis.  I believe more then likely the bone ends would grind together[it wouldn't be very loud](finger nails on the chalk board times a thousand if you ever heard it, even worse for the person feeling it.)
I believe even a wagon ride would be extremely painful.
So I believe the person with no hope of walking again, in agony with every movement, they would quickly beg to be killed.


----------



## SM-Dreamer (Jul 31, 2014)

When my wife and her friends were teenagers, the fun thing to do (as a test of bravery) was jumping from a bridge down into the water. There was a (relatively) safe way to do it that everyone else did, and then there's the way another guy showing off tried to do it.

He tried to do a head-dive from about a hundred feet up, and hit his head on a rock. The kids dragged him out (to keep him from drowning, and no one thought of the damage it might do.) Luckily someone ran for help, and an ambulance was able to come and get him. 

But he was paralyzed from the neck down, and died in his 30's.


----------



## Fyle (Jul 31, 2014)

Geez. Some horror stories came out of this post.

Ya, post it up in showcase OP. If not it's all speculation on how it will actually sound on paper. I am more worried about the logic of the execution and why would the characters be executed in this way. I mean we all give our characters a few "get out of jail free cards" to survive a situation  but, this sounds like a stretch.


----------

