By Danny Penman
Source: Daily Mail
A beautiful sunny day in the Cotswolds, two years ago.
Six paragliders are circling like eagles on powerful currents of rising air. A group of children gaze with open mouths as the giant parachutes dive and swoosh silently above their heads.
Then, suddenly, something starts to go wrong.
Breaking away from the group, one of the paragliders is hit by a powerful gust of wind, turning the parachute canopy inside out.
The pilot starts spinning like a sycamore seed towards the earth. Though he fights desperately, he cannot regain control of his parachute.
After what seems an eternity, the young man smashes into the hillside, driving the lower part of his right leg through the knee and into his thigh. He lies face down on the ground, blood trickling from his mouth.
After a moment of stunned silence, he begins screaming in agony.
He knows medical help is at least 30 minutes away and that it will take another hour to reach hospital.
To make matters worse, he knows that he can’t afford to lose consciousness because he might never again awaken if his skull has been fractured in the fall.
Something stronger than a ‘stiff upper lip’ is called for.
So the man slowly begins to suppress the pain of his shattered leg using a form of self-hypnosis he’d read about as a child.
He begins by forcing himself to breathe slowly and deeply before imagining himself in a garden full of flowers.
With a supreme effort of will, he mentally pushes the unwanted pain of his shattered knee to the back of his mind.
Even though shards of bone can be seen through his jeans, he forces himself to believe that his knee is only bruised.
He refuses to believe in pain.
‘It is a myth,’ he keeps telling himself. ‘Pain does not exist.’
And inch-by-inch the agony recedes before, finally, becoming isolated and distant.
The hypnosis had worked. He remains in a state of calm, until finally the paramedics arrive with the blessed relief of chemical anaesthesia.
An apocryphal tale? Perhaps so. But I know this story to be all too true. I know it, because I was that young man who crashed his paraglider.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY
No comments:
Post a Comment