Run Down on the Rails

You went down between the rails and the wheel found your leg below the knee before the brakeman ever heard the shouting. Flange and tread do not argue: bone, boot and all were crushed to a ruin no splint can order. The doctor works fast by lamplight with saw, silk and hot iron, and says plainly that the leg is gone, and that the fight now is against bleeding and the rot that follows rail wounds.

• Bedridden and dosed with laudanum, no leaving the cot for 5 days, no standing unaided for 3 weeks
• The right leg ends below the knee: no riding, no walking without a cane and a steadying arm for 6 weeks, a peg or carved limb only after the stump hardens
• Fever watch each night for 10 days, any red streaking or stink means the doctor, at once
• /me lies gray and still, the blanket falling flat where the right shin ought to be

Recovery The stump takes 6 to 8 weeks to close and harden, and learning the peg takes the season after that.·Doctor, urgently

The footboard took your leg like a maul and the wheel's draft spun you clear before worse could follow. Your right leg is broken in two places, shin and lower thigh, the shapes of it wrong under the trouser cloth. The doctor sets both breaks by feel, sweating, while you bite a strap, then splints the whole limb hip to ankle in board and bandage.

• Right leg splinted hip to ankle: no standing on it for 2 weeks, no riding for 6 weeks
• Move only with a cane and a shoulder to lean on, short distances, for the first month
• Laudanum at night for 5 days, the grating ache wakes you when it wears thin
• /me shifts on the cot an inch at a time, the splinted leg held dead straight

Recovery Both breaks knit in 8 to 10 weeks if the splint stays on and you stay off the leg.·Doctor, urgently

You snatched your body back but the boot toe lagged, and the flange rolled over it slow and certain. Inside the crushed leather the two smallest toes of your left foot are flattened, the nails gone black already. The doctor cuts the boot away, cleans the mess with carbolic, and says the toes will declare themselves within the week: pink and they stay, black and they go.

• Left foot bound and kept raised on a sack or saddle, no boot on that foot for 10 days
• Walk heel first with a stick, no running, no stirrup on the left side for 3 weeks
• Dressing changed daily in carbolic water, any fever or stink means the doctor at once
• /me limps heel down on the left foot, the ruined boot carried in one hand

Recovery If the toes keep, 3 to 4 weeks to walk plain; if they go, add a fortnight for the wound to close.·Doctor, urgently

Your coat hooked on the footboard iron and the car walked you along the ballast on your back for a full car length before the cloth tore free. The stones planed you raw from shoulder to hip and snapped your left collarbone where the tie ends beat it. The doctor picks gravel out of you for the better part of an hour, then binds the shoulder back and down.

• Left arm bound to the body in a sling, no lifting or reaching with it for 4 weeks
• Back and hip scraped raw: no lying flat on your back, sleep on the right side for 10 days
• Dressings soaked off and reset every other day, gravel works out of the skin for a fortnight
• /me walks stiff and square, left arm strapped down, breath catching when the shirt shifts

Recovery The collarbone knits in 4 to 6 weeks; the gravel burns scab and peel inside 2.·Doctor required

The buffer beam shoved you from your feet and the railhead met your ribs when you came down. Three on the right side cracked, and now each breath is a bargain struck at poor terms. The doctor straps the side in wide bandage, warns you of lung fever if you breathe too shy, and prescribes whiskey in small honest doses.

• Cracked ribs on the right: no lifting, hauling or swinging anything heavier than a coffee pot for 3 weeks
• No laughing, and any cough must be braced against a folded coat, for 2 weeks
• Riding at a walk only for 10 days, the jolt of a lope doubles you over
• /me holds the right side with a forearm and breathes in careful half measures

Recovery Cracked ribs quiet down in 3 weeks and knit whole in 6.·Doctor required

You threw a hand up as the grab iron came past and it took the offer, wrenching your right arm out of the shoulder socket as the car rolled on. The joint sits forward of where it should, the arm hanging useless. The doctor sets a boot heel in your armpit, takes your wrist, and pulls until the shoulder goes home with a clunk you will hear in your dreams.

• Right arm slung tight to the body for 2 weeks, no reaching above the shoulder for a month
• No gripping with the right hand on anything that pulls, reins included, for 10 days
• The shoulder slips easily now: no throwing or hauling with that arm for 6 weeks
• /me carries the right arm slung close and turns the whole body rather than reach

Recovery Out of the sling in 2 weeks, trustworthy again in 6.·Doctor required

The footboard's iron corner clipped your head as you dove and opened your scalp from temple to crown. Head wounds bleed like slaughter and this one painted your face to the collar before you found your knees. The doctor shaves the line, closes it with a dozen silk stitches, and looks hard into each of your eyes with a lamp raised before he lets you sit up.

• Twelve stitches in the scalp: no hat brim resting on them, hat pushed back or carried for 8 days
• Watched for concussion: someone wakes you twice the first night, no whiskey for 3 days
• Headaches and swimming vision on quick turns for a week, no galloping for 5 days
• /me wears a linen wrap above the brow, dried blood still rusting one ear

Recovery Stitches out in 8 days, the headache gone within a fortnight.·Doctor required

Your heel dropped into the switch frog as the car came on, and you tore the foot loose by main strength with the wheel close enough to feel its wind. You got clear by inches. The ankle is wrenched deep, the cords torn, swollen already to twice its living size, and it will not bear a pound of you tonight.

• Right ankle bound firm in flannel, no weight on it for 4 days, then hobbling with a stick for 10 more
• No stirrup on the right side for 2 weeks, mounting from the off side like a greenhorn
• The boot goes on loose laced or not at all for a week
• /me hops a step, then stands stork still, the right boot dangling clear of the ground

Recovery A deep wrench like this walks plain in 2 to 3 weeks and complains for 6.·Doctor advised

The car's shoulder caught you and threw you clear onto the ballast, where the world rang like a struck bell. You came around a minute later with gravel in your cheek, a split brow, and no memory of the car ever arriving. The depot clerk swears you flew; you have only his word and the aches for it.

• Concussed: a companion wakes you through the first night, no liquor and no gunplay for 3 days
• A stitched brow and a gravel picked cheek, dressings kept dry for 5 days
• Riding at a walk only for 3 days, the world tilts on quick turns
• /me touches the stitched brow and squints, as if checking the ground will hold

Recovery The head clears inside a week; the brow takes its 4 stitches out on day 8.·Doctor advised

The buffer beam took you square in the chest and tossed you the way a bull tosses a dog. You landed sitting, wind gone entire, and for half a minute the depot got to watch you learn breathing again from the first lesson. Under the shirt is a bruise in the beam's own shape, breastbone deep, and it means to stay a while.

• Breastbone bruised deep: no heavy lifting, wood splitting or roping for 2 weeks
• Sleeping propped on a rolled coat for a week, lying flat brings the ache on
• A long breath or a sneeze doubles you up for 5 days
• /me presses a palm flat to the breastbone before rising from any chair

Recovery The deep ache fades over 2 weeks; the bruise blooms and yellows for 3.·Doctor advised

You dove clear and the ballast took its price on the way down: both forearms and one cheek planed raw, the shirt sleeves shredded into the wounds. The doctor soaks the cloth free with warm carbolic water, which is its own small purgatory, then dresses both arms like a pair of hams.

• Both forearms dressed wrist to elbow: no rope work and no washing in lye for a week
• Dressings changed daily, cinder grit keeps working to the surface for days
• Shirtsleeves worn loose or rolled above the dressings for 5 days
• /me holds both bandaged forearms clear of the table edge

Recovery Raw skin scabs in 4 days and peels clean in 2 weeks.·Doctor advised

You spun clear of the car but your knee did not spin with you: it turned in the ballast, popped once, and swelled to melon size by supper. Nothing broken, the doctor judges, working the joint while you grip the chair, but something in there was stretched past its writ and means to be consulted on all future plans for a while.

• Right knee wrapped and stiff: no squatting, kneeling or jumping down from the wagon for 2 weeks
• Stairs and mounting taken slow, leading with the good leg, for 10 days
• A stick on rough ground for the first week
• /me walks with a straight right leg, swinging it wide at each step

Recovery The swelling falls in a week; the knee trusts you again in 3.·Doctor advised

You got a palm down as you fell and the wrist took the whole invoice. It is not broken, the doctor says, bending it in ways you would rather he did not, but it is badly sprained and jammed, puffed up like risen dough and about as useful.

• Right wrist splinted with a leather stay: no gripping with the right hand for 5 days
• No pistol work or roping right handed for 10 days, buttons and buckles go left handed
• The wrap soaked in witch hazel each evening for a week
• /me favors the splinted right wrist, doing slow clumsy work with the left hand

Recovery A bad sprain like this steadies in 10 days and forgets itself in 3 weeks.·Doctor advised

The footboard clipped you at the hip as you cleared the rail, spinning you into a graceless somersault the yard crew will be performing at the saloon for weeks. You stood up cursing. There is a bruise coming up on the hip bone the size of a stove lid, and that is the whole of the bill.

• A deep hip bruise: sleeping on the left side only for 4 days
• Mounting up is a slow and profane business for 3 days
• /me rubs the right hip when standing after a long sit

Recovery Sore for 4 or 5 days, purple for a fortnight, forgotten after.·No doctor needed

You vaulted the far rail a half beat ahead of the wheel and paid in skin: both palms scraped on the cinders and one knuckle split against the railhead. It stings like a lesson and looks worse than it is once the grit is washed out with whiskey you would rather have drunk.

• Palms scraped raw: gloves off and the wounds aired each night for 4 days
• Rope, reins and hot pans handled gingerly for 3 days
• /me flexes bandage striped hands slowly, palms up

Recovery Scabbed by tomorrow, smooth again inside 10 days.·No doctor needed

You beat the car across but caught your elbow on the rail as you rolled, square on the nerve. The arm buzzed dead to the fingertips for a quarter hour, which you spent sitting on a baggage truck telling everyone you were fine in a voice that was not. The elbow is bruised bone deep; the hand already works again.

• Left elbow bruised to the bone: no leaning on it at the bar or table for 5 days
• Grip in the left hand weak and tingling on and off for 2 days
• /me shakes out the left hand as the feeling stutters back into it

Recovery The tingling quits in a day or two; the elbow stays tender for a week.·No doctor needed

Your own dive was the injury: you cracked your head on the rail getting clear and put the lamps out for a five count. You came to with the yard hand fanning you with his hat. There is a goose egg above your ear and a headache with opinions, but your eyes track true and your supper stayed put.

• A goose egg over the ear: hat worn tilted off it for 3 days
• Headache on and off for 2 days, loud saloons and bright noon avoided the first day
• Someone checks on you once during the first night, to be safe
• /me tilts the hat off a swelling above one ear

Recovery The lump flattens over 4 or 5 days, the headache leaves sooner.·Doctor advised

The wheel took the heel off your boot as clean as a cobbler's knife, and the little tug dropped you backward off the rail to safety as if a hand had shoved you. You sat in the cinders holding a boot that now rocks like a chair, entirely unhurt, while the car rolled on with your heel someplace beneath it.

• One boot heel gone: walking with a sailor's list until the cobbler is seen
• Drinks owed to the yard hand who swears he watched your soul step out and back
• /me limps level footed on one heeled boot and one flat, grinning

Recovery Nothing to heal; the boot is at the cobbler by week's end.·No doctor needed

The footboard iron hooked your coat tail and tore the whole back panel away with a report like a pistol shot, spinning you a full turn and setting you down on your feet, facing the way you came. The car carried your coat's better half off toward the water tower. You are unmarked, though your heart may never fully come down.

• The good coat is half a coat now; wind finds your back until it is replaced
• One long red scuff across the shoulder blade where the cloth dragged, gone in 2 days
• /me turns to show the torn away back of the coat to anyone who asks, and to some who do not

Recovery The scuff fades in 2 days; the coat is beyond any doctor.·No doctor needed

There was no time to cross and none to go back, so you dropped flat between the rails and let the car pass over you, axles and rods sliding by a hand's width above your nose, dripping grease onto your shirt in slow black coins. When daylight opened again you rolled out, stood, and counted every limb twice. All present. The shirt is ruined, the story is immortal, and the yard boss has already told it wrong to three different people.

• Not a scratch on you, but the shirt is grease striped past any washboard's help
• You flinch at the sound of slack running out in the couplings for a week or so
• First drink is on the house at the depot saloon; the tale grows a car longer with each telling
• /me lies down flat between imaginary rails to demonstrate, arms pinned to the sides

Recovery Nothing to mend but the shirt, and the shirt is past mending.·No doctor needed