i've seen worlds that don't belong

Friday, June 22, 2007, 11:52 PM

Archery camp just ended today. And I must say it was a blast! I made a lot of new friends, bonded more with friends I already knew, shot a lot of arrows etc etc. Overall archery camp was fun though it had its serious moments. PT was an example, where we had to train like mad to get our fitness up. And another serious moment would be during shooting training, to get our form right, stance correct, technique accurate, anchor position correct etc. But one serious moment happened today that made my day the scariest day of my life.

This is how it happened: Jared and I assembled a recurve bow up, but the bolts to secure the limbs to the reizer were missing. So we consulted one of the seniors to help find any other extra bolts that were suitable for the reizer. The senior couldn't find them so we had to use temporary bolts, that no one expected to be unusable.

After fixing the string to the bow, the recurve was all set for use. I then started drawing back the string of the bow to get a proper anchor point and to get my form correct. Oli and Jared stared at me, telling me how perfect my form is. I asked Jared to take a photo of me and he did. Then I did the same for Jared, helping him take a photo of his form. I took the bow from Jared to get my anchor point right. Then Oli, while complaining about how good my form is, took the bow from me and inspected it. And thankfully, I took the bow from her before she could draw back the string. Because when I took the bow from her again, and pulled back to string while Jared was telling me about my shoulder being too high, the limbs of the bow gave way, almost snapping. The bolts that held the limbs could not withstand the tension from the limbs and therefore, flew out. Immediately at that point of time, I felt the string lose tension, and I knew something was wrong. And in less than a spilt second, I prepared for the worse, when the limbs gave way and flew. The sound generated by the "snapping" of the bow shocked not just me but everyone. I stood frozen solid in front of Oli and Jared, in shock about what had happened.

I then felt pain in my left shoulder, where apparently one the limbs of the bow had swung and hit me. Oli, in shock, didn't register what had happened at that instance. She just stared. But then she regained her composure, and practically shouted, " Darryl, are you okay?" Jared immediately stood up and held me by my right arm to sit down. Then my whole left arm, especially where the limb had hit my shoulder, started throbbing in pain, the intensity of magnificent magnitude. It hurt so bad that I couldn't even talk properly, partly because of the shock I was experiencing. I just sat there, while the seniors came to ask what had happened, to ask if I was alright.

Jared started rubbing the point of impact and making my left arm move so as to get the blood circulating because he mentioned that he felt a blood clot. He rubbed hard, and I experienced short sharp stings of pain here and there whenever he rubbed a certain point. Oli and the rest of the team asked me if I was alright, and made sure I was okay to shoot. And thankfully, I was able to shoot even though holding up the bow gave me some difficulty.

As for now, I'm alright. My left arm doesn't hurt a significant much anymore.
That's all for this post. Ciao!