Don't Needle Me

Once upon a time I worked as an electronics design engineer for a company that made self-navigating mobile robots. These machines weighed approximately 500 pounds. One day, during an ill-advised demonstration of the robots' ability to climb ramps, a robot turned over and landed on my right foot. It hurt like hell. I turned and walked silently out of the room. I walked to the front offices and related what just happened to Steve, a software engineer. "I think my foot might be broken," I told him.

Steve drove me to a nearby doc-in-the-box, a nickname we ordinary citizens sometimes used to refer to an urgent care facility. The young lady at the front desk quizzed me at length on my ability to pay. I had health insurance, but that wasn't enough. I had my checkbook, still not enough. I had cash with me, and still she wasn't satisfied. Finally Steve had enough of watching her interrogation, and he reminded her quite forcefully that I had insurance and money and there was an ATM across the street and a branch bank a few blocks down the street and demanded that she get a doctor. His persuasiveness was effective and I was ushered into an X-ray room. The technician did his job and then I was directed to an examination room where I could lie on an exam table—that blue bed with the wax paper running down the middle—and I could get my foot off the floor and relax a little bit while waiting for the doctor's verdict.

Within a few minutes a doctor appeared, and he was holding X-ray films. He had a quizzical expression. He told me I had no broken bones, but then he asked me if my foot had been bothering me before the accident, and I told him no. Then he showed me the X-ray films. One film was a side view of my foot, and another film was a top view, looking down on my foot. There was very clearly a sewing needle inside my right foot. It was located near the sole of my foot and was oriented parallel to the sole, about a quarter inch inside my foot. The needle was broken. About one quarter inch near the sharp end was broken off from the remainder of the needle but was still there, and the sharp point was missing. What remained was about an inch and a quarter long, and the eye of the needle was quite easy to see.

The needle was not bothering me so we left it there, inside my foot. I imagine it embedded itself in my foot when I was a child. It had probably fallen to the floor of my house, and as I walked through the house barefoot, the needle would have easily pierced the sole of my foot. Once inside my foot, it was there to stay, unknown for decades, until a workplace accident caused it to be revealed.