A bad fall

Ben had been cycling to work for years when, one icy morning in January, he fell off his bike. He must have hit his head, because he can't remember anything about the fall. A woman who was walking her dog found him lying unconscious by the road. By the time the ambulance arrived, he had recovered consciousness, but he felt dizzy and confused. At the hospital, the doctors took an X-ray of his arm. Luckily, nothing was broken, but his arm was badly swollen and he had a deep wound on his knee.

He was kept in a ward for two nights so that the doctors could watch his symptoms. The nurses cleaned the wound every day to prevent infection. Before he left, a doctor advised him not to go back to work until he had fully recovered.

Three weeks later, the wound has healed, although Ben will have a scar for the rest of his life. He still has a big bruise on his leg, which is slowly turning green. His wife, Mary, wishes he didn't cycle to work, but Ben refuses to take the bus. By the summer, Ben will probably have forgotten the accident, but Mary certainly won't.