Brother and sister have a bad break at the double
‘It hurts... but they can see the funny side now’
SCHOOL break time was given a whole new meaning when a brother and sister fractured the same bone in their wrists - in separate accidents 10 minutes apart.
First Sam Ryan, 12, suffered a buckle fracture in a fall as he warmed up for a PE lesson at Priestnall School, in Heaton Mersey.
Then his sister Connie, nine, was left with the same injury when she also took a tumble warming up for her PE class at St Thomas’s Primary, in Heaton Chapel.
Mum Louise had been driving to collect Sam and take him to hospital when she received a call from her daughter’s school to say the same thing had happened to her.
She said: “I pulled over and the school said Connie had fallen on her wrist in PE and could I come and get her. My reaction was are you joking?
“I’d had exactly the same conversation with exactly the same words 10 minutes earlier with Sam’s school. I though it must be the worst practical joke I’d heard in a long time.
“It’s so strange, it must be the same odds as winning the lottery. It’s not even as though they are accident prone, Sam’s fallen off his bike once and that’s it.
“They are fine, it is a bit uncomfortable for them and hurts if they knock it but they can see the funny side now, or at least what a huge coincidence it is.”
Having picked both her children up Louise, of Tatton Road South, Heaton Moor, took them to Manchester Children’s Hospital.
Doctors said that Sam and Connie had identical fractures - albeit on different wrists - and put her right arm in a cast.
Sam’s was put in a splint as he’d had a break previously in the bike accident and disliked having a cast.
The accidents happened on February 15 and the family, which includes dad Blake, had to cancel a skiing holiday to Italy that was due to start the following Saturday.
Connie said: “I was upset at the time now I’m just shocked that we both did it at the same time.”
She and her brother will go back to the hospital together in three weeks to have the cast and splint taken off. Then it may be another two weeks before they can do PE again.
Louise, who works as a solicitor, added: “You try and look for a silver lining and if both Connie and Sam are going to break their wrists it’s best they do it together and it’s only one trip to hospital.”