Fall from Bridge into Water

The bridge rail is the last thing you touch on the way down; the water knocks you cold on arrival. They pull you out face-down and blue a hundred yards downstream, and it takes rolling you over a barrel and half an hour of terror before you cough up the river and breathe.

• Chest aching from the barrel-rolling that saved you
• Lungs half-claimed, a wet, tearing cough for 4 days
• Watched day and night for the fever the era calls secondary drowning
• /me coughs long and wet, gripping whatever is nearest until it passes

Recovery A week under a doctor's fever-watch, propped up so the lungs drain; alone, the second drowning can come dry, in your sleep·Doctor, urgently

You land flat on your back from full height and the river hits like a barn door swung shut. Ribs crack, both ears blow to ringing silence, and you barely make the bank with arms that won't answer properly.

• Two ribs cracked, no lifting or swimming for 5 days
• Both ears ringing; hears the world through wool for 3 days
• Every deep breath is a bargain struck at bad rates
• A slap-bruise across the whole back, red going purple

Recovery 5 days strapped and resting under a doctor, 7 on grit alone, and the ears take their own sweet time deciding·Doctor required

The impact tears your shoulder from its socket, and you learn what one-armed swimming in a current is worth, nearly nothing. You claw to a snag and hang there swallowing river until help hauls you out, the arm dead at your side.

• The reset on the bank was heard over the water and will be imitated
• Arm slung for 5 days, no lifting, no reins in that hand
• A wet cough for 2 days from the river you drank waiting
• /me hangs the slung arm's thumb in their belt, shoulder packed with liniment

Recovery 5 days slung once it's hauled home, with a doctor listening to your chest besides; unset, the arm hangs useless and swells past help·Doctor required

The river is deep enough, but the drowned cottonwood under the surface isn't. Your head finds it, opening a gash and filling the water with red, and only the cold shock keeps you awake enough to reach the shallows.

• Six silk stitches across the scalp
• A dark room for 2 days; no fast riding for 4
• Someone wakes you through the first night to check your eyes

Recovery Stitched and watched, 5 days; undressed, river water in a head wound turns angry fast and brings fever with it·Doctor, urgently

You go in crooked and the slap drives water into one ear like a nail. Something gives with a white spike of pain, and the world on that side goes to muffled cotton and a high thin whistle.

• Deaf on one side for 4 days, folks keep appearing at your bad ear like ghosts
• No diving, swimming, or gunfire close by for 4 days
• Dizzy when you turn your head fast, no rooftop or ledge work

Recovery 4 days of dry-ear and patience with a doctor's plug of oiled wool, 7 if river water sits in it and sours·Doctor required

You come up on the third try with the river inside you. The coughing starts on the bank and doesn't rightly stop, a wet, barking rattle that folks in 1899 know to fear, because sometimes the drowning finishes its work later.

• A barking cough for 3 days, worst when you lie flat
• Sleeps propped upright for 3 days
• Fever-watch: chills or a rattle mean fetch the doctor at any hour

Recovery 3 days propped and watched by a doctor, 6 uneasy ones alone, and the night sweats will scare you either way·Doctor required

You half-turn in the air and land on your side, and the water cracks a rib as sure as any fist could. Swimming to the bank with it is a lesson you'll be a while forgetting.

• Rib strapped, no lifting or rowing for 4 days
• Laughing and sneezing both punish you promptly
• /me presses a forearm flat against their side before every cough

Recovery 4 days strapped with a doctor's care, 6 if you keep hauling on oars and ropes·Doctor required

The river is snowmelt-cold and the gasp it punches out of you happens underwater. You surface strangling, all skill gone, and make the bank on animal panic alone, then can't stop shaking for an hour.

• Violent shivers, a fire and dry clothes within the hour, or this becomes a colder story
• A wet cough for 2 days
• Hands too clumsy for buttons or triggers until you're warmed through

Recovery A day by the fire if warmed quick, 3 feverish ones if the cold got its hooks in·Doctor required

You land flat on your front and the whole river applauds. The slap leaves you stinging from collarbone to knee, red as a boiled lobster and twice as tender.

• Slap-red chest and thighs for 2 days
• Wearing a shirt hurts for a day; wearing nothing is illegal
• The sound of it is discussed in town for longer than the injury lasts

Recovery 2 days of tenderness, less if you stay out of the sun·Doctor advised

You go in tilted and the water goes up your nose with force enough to reach your back teeth. Your nose bleeds in the shallows, your eyes stream, and your sinuses burn like you snorted a lit match.

• A nosebleed that restarts twice more today
• A sinus-burn headache behind the eyes for a day
• Honking and snuffling for 2 days
• /me pinches the bridge of their nose and tips their head back, muttering about bridges

Recovery A day of burning, 2 of snuffling, then done·Doctor advised

The landing is fine; the current isn't. It pins you against a bridge piling and you wrench a knee kicking free, limping up the mudbank a quarter-mile downstream of your hat.

• Knee wrapped, walk, never sprint, for 3 days
• The hat is downstream; a boy retrieves it and expects a reward
• Bruises stamped in the shape of the piling across one side

Recovery 3 days wrapped and favored, 5 if you keep wading and climbing·Doctor advised

Both ears take the slap and hold the grudge, ringing steady, hearing muffled, and the ground swaying gently as a ferry deck whenever you turn your head too fast.

• Hears like through a shut door for 2 days, asks everyone to say it again
• Dizzy on quick turns for 2 days, no climbing, no ledges
• Hums to check their own ears when they think no one's watching

Recovery 2 days of ringing, 4 before quiet sounds come back honest·Doctor advised

The river is shallower than the bridge suggested. Your boots strike the stony bed hard enough to fold you double, and both heels bruise stone-deep, though nothing gives way.

• A flat-footed shuffle for 2 days
• No jumping down from wagons or saddles for 3 days
• Checks the depth of every water crossing forever after, loudly

Recovery 2 days of tender heels, 4 if you stay standing all day·Doctor advised

You surface fine, your boots don't. Somewhere on the riverbed stands the finest pair you've owned, heels down, and you squelch up the bank in wet socks, unhurt everywhere but the ledger.

• Barefoot or borrowed boots until you're re-shod
• One toe stubbed on the walk home, the day's only true injury
• Mourns the boots publicly, at length, to anyone cornered

Recovery Nothing to heal; the boots are with the river now·No doctor needed

You mostly get your feet under you and the water takes the rest kindly. One thigh and forearm are slapped pink and stinging where you came in crooked, the price of a graceless entry, paid in full.

• A stinging thigh and forearm until evening
• A hand-shaped blush of a bruise for 2 days
• Flinches at the first touch of bathwater

Recovery Stings till supper, gone in 2 days·No doctor needed

In, under, up, done. The worst injury is the walk back through town dripping a personal rainstorm, boots gargling at every step, while the bridge crowd narrates to newcomers.

• Dripping the length of the main street with full witnesses
• A sneeze settling in by evening, nothing worse
• The story reaches the saloon before you've wrung out your socks
• /me wrings a hat out over the boardwalk rail with what dignity survives

Recovery Dry by morning; the nickname takes a week to shake·No doctor needed

The cold and the climb-out spend everything you had. You lie on the mudbank heaving like a landed catfish, whole, unhurt, and entirely unable to explain any of it for ten minutes.

• Winded and wobbly for an hour
• Mud from hatband to bootheel
• A rescuer on the bank who's owed a drink and a straight answer

Recovery An hour of heaving, a bath, and it's a story·No doctor needed

Some drill-sergeant instinct snaps your legs together and your arms across your chest, and you cut into the deep channel clean as a dropped knife. You bob up grinning before your hat lands beside you.

• Water up the nose, the entire toll
• The hat retrieved, floating, nearly dry
• Asked twice at the saloon to teach the trick

Recovery Nothing to heal; the grin lasts all week·No doctor needed

You surface beside a startled old fisherman's skiff and he has you over the gunwale before your boots fill. You're ashore, wrapped in his coat, drinking his coffee before the bridge crowd even reaches the bank.

• Damp, warm, and mortified in a borrowed coat
• A debt of tobacco and patience, he retells it better than you do
• Not a scratch to show for the whole affair

Recovery Nothing to heal; the friendship outlasts the embarrassment·No doctor needed

You knife in clean, kick off the bottom, and surface with your hat still on and a live trout flapping inside your shirt. The bridge crowd sees every second of it; the trout feeds you supper; the story feeds you for a year.

• Hat retention verified by a dozen witnesses
• Supper is caught, cleaned, and named
• /me produces a live trout from inside their shirt and tips their bone-dry hat

Recovery Nothing to heal, the river simply chose a favorite today·No doctor needed