The Panicked Mind Can Do Strange Things

I remember the old driver's education film in which you're put in a seat of a moving car and little circles appear around potential dangers lurking down the road, including cars approaching intersections, clueless pedestrians about the cross the street, balls bouncing out from behind cars, etc.
I suppose good drivers still mentally draw circles around possible vehicular trouble. I know I do. I'm guessing that at least one time in a motorist's life, one of those circles goes from a potential problem to an accident, too often tragic ones.
About 20 years ago, my mind had circled an old pickup truck approaching a stop sign while I was toodling down a frontage road on the way to work. The circle ran the stop sign, and a mental alarm went off.
It is in circumstances such as this when the mind seemingly goes into slow motion, engaging in a hyperspeed thought process in search of a way out.
In the example of the truck, the collision was unavoidable, but the brain somehow sorted through several options, albeit undesirable ones.
One option was to hit the truck's cab, possibly endangering the other driver. A second was to aim for the back tire, possibly minimizing his damage but compounding mine, not only to my car but possibly my body. I chose Option 3, which was hitting the soft part of the truck just in front of the rear tire.
I chose wisely.
My car took a beating, but it wasn't totaled, and I got out of the car with only a slightly sprained neck. Being a good newsman, the first thing I did was call the newspaper a couple of blocks away and have a photographer come out to take a shot of my car. I still have that photo. It hangs in my house next to the one of me and the Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.
Anyway, I'm writing about all this because I had a similar slow-motion experience Friday night, when a misjudged step in my new home resulted in the beginnings of that sickening here-we-go feeling we get when something starts spiraling out of control.
I was coming down the darkened staircase, and my right foot made the misstep. Suddenly, I started falling forward and lost almost all control.
My brain went quickly into the Rolodex of options.
Keep falling forward and use my hands to brace my fall? No, because I didn't know what was in front of me, and I could break my hands, wrists or possibly my neck.
Grab something on the side? No, there's not much to grab on this staircase.
Subsequently, like an ice skater - a big, uncoordinated one who skates pigeon-toed - I used my left leg to launch me through the open part of the staircase. I did a half axle and landed on the wooden floor below. Pain shot up my right foot, and I crumpled to the floor.
Serious point reduction for that one.
I got up and tested the foot, comfirming that something had gone askew in there.
I limped off to bed, hoping that it would be better by morning.
It wasn't, so I drove myself to the clinic Saturday morning. The doctor said that luckily, I had not broken any bones, but I did have a serious heel bruise coupled with some hyperextension.
Today, the pain is still there, but it is dull and getting better by the hour.
So like with the car crash, my brain chose wisely.
Next time, maybe I'll make better use of my brain and turn the damned light on before I descend the staircase.

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