Whenever we get injured, the pain and the panic sometimes make it difficult for us to think clearly. When we’re not thinking clearly, we’re more prone to worsening our injury because we don’t know how to protect an injury until it’s treated properly.
So, in the event that you sustain a knee injury, it’s important to know the next steps to put yourself in a more stable situation and here are the things you should do.
1. Get to a seating position
When you’ve fallen down and you feel an intense pain on your knee/s you should move slowly and see if you can move to a seated position. The reason you shouldn’t stay lying down is that you might exacerbate your condition by not moving.
Perhaps you fell down while you were running a marathon and other runners are behind you. If that is the case you need to move out of their way as carefully as possible because they might fall down on you as well or even step on your injured knee making it worse.
So, you need to move to a seated position to better protect yourself from further accidents. But, do it slowly and guard your injured knee with your hands. Try to protect it from any other possible impacts.
2. Check yourself
The next thing on your list is to check if you have sustained any other injuries and to see how bad your knee injury is. Run your hands and fingers over your knee carefully feeling for any broken bones. Don’t press too hard because if there is a broken bone or torn ligament you might damage it even more.
You should also check your patella. The cup-shaped area in your knee that looks like it has a disc on top of it is your patella. When it looks like it’s out of position, then chances are you damaged it and it would be wise not to stand up.
If your patella is damaged, try your best to stabilize it by holding it down gently. Try to stay calm and wait for someone to help you out. As much as possible, don’t move around too much in order to keep your knee cap from getting more disjointed.
3. Try to stand
This should only be an option if after checking yourself you saw that your injury is not that severe. So, this means you should only try to stand up if the pain of your injury is moderately painful and you don’t have any broken bones and your patella or knee cap is still in place.
Before trying to stand, make sure that you have something sturdy to hold onto. If you fell on an ice skating rink and you’re alone best to slide towards the entrance instead of attempting to stand. Ice can be slippery and if you try to stand up you might slip and injure yourself further.
Once you’ve found something sturdy to hold onto use your hands and undamaged leg to lift yourself up. Once you’re in a standing position try to put some of your weight on your injured knee just to see how damaged it is. If the pain is bearable, then perhaps the injury is not as bad as it seemed earlier.
Still, do not put half of your weight on your injured knee. Either ask someone to help partially carry you to the nearest clinic or look for any stick or plank that you can use as a temporary crutch.
It’s important to keep a clear head after sustaining an injury to your knee. Now that you know what steps to take after this kind of injury you won’t exacerbate your condition anymore. You’ll be able to protect your knee until you get to a specialist on knee injury.
