The time I got the wind knocked out of me

Unlike most of the other trash I post on here that are ostensibly true, this story is actually true.

I had my first sleepover birthday party when I was in fourth grade. It was a pretty big deal, naturally. I had Daniel, David and Chris R. over for the night. The get-together was sort of in the weird in-between stage between the old parties--there was cake--and the newer, older, more "mature" ones. There were no organized games or anything like that, the kinds of things my mom liked to throw herself into. We spent most of the night up in my room playing Super Nintendo.

So there we were, playing Super Nintendo. My mom had picked up a few games from Blockbuster, including Wheel of Fortune, which is what we were playing the time I got the wind knocked out of me. And we were having fun, playing Super Nintendo Wheel of Fortune at a birthday party.

Super Nintendo only has two controllers, of course, so it was me against Chris R. and a computer player, who was on the easiest setting and so was basically a nonfactor. It was the first round, I think, and Chris R. was dominating. The category was "Thing," I think, or maybe "Literature" or something, and so far what we'd had was "TO _ILL _ MOC_ING_IRD." We all knew it was TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by this point (even though none of us had read the book or seen the movie) and it just came down to who could solve the puzzle and cash in.

Cashing in was exactly what Chris R. had in mind. I had a few hundred bucks, the computer may have had nothing, and Chris R. had like $16000. Something in the five figures, anyway. But he was not content to stop there. Oh no. He kept going and going, and his plan was only to solve the puzzle after all the consonants were filled in and he had made as much money as possible. All I'd gotten was the T, I think, right at the beginning, and he'd gotten all the rest of the letters, so he felt he was entitled. So he kept spinning and spinning, picking up every dollar he could, until he landed on Bankrupt.

When Chris R. went Backrupt, it was the computer's turn. The computer guessed P, lost its turn and then it was me. Being the weasel I am (and I am such a weasel), I solved without taking any chances by spinning. Chris R. got nothing, I got my $600 or whatever it was and I celebrated my lead.

Chris R. was upset by this, quite naturally. I mean, not real upset, but like, fake upset, or friend upset, or whatever. Because the least I could have done was spun at least once, to give him one more chance. But I had just piggybacked on all his work for the easy win. So we started wrestling, and he was much larger than me at the time, and much stronger and much more fit, so I was on the ground and he jumped on my back and all of a sudden I couldn't breathe.

What had happened was I'd had the wind knocked out of me. Having the wind knocked out of you is no big deal, of course. Wikipedia sez:

Getting the wind knocked out of you is a phrase that mainly refers to a kind of diaphragm spasm that occurs when sudden force is applied to the abdomen which puts pressure on the solar plexus. It results in a temporary paralysis of the diaphragm that makes it difficult to breathe for a short period of time.[1][2] It can also occur from a strong blow to the back.

[...]

Often the laryngeal muscles contract during diaphragm spasm producing an inspiratory sound known as stridor which can be heard for several cycles as breathing resumes. Singultus, commonly known as the hiccups, is also a form of diaphragm spasm, although much milder.

So the physiological reality of having the wind knocked out of you is like being stuck in a hiccup, basically. That is the reality of what was going on.

But as far as I knew, I couldn't breathe and I would never breathe again. I was going to die, I thought. I got up and tried to gulp air in like a fish, and I pounded my throat and probably wheezed "I can't breathe," to the extent that I could wheeze since there was no air coming in or out of me. I honestly thought I was going to die.

I staggered out of my room and into the hallway. There I bumped into my sister. I think I was on my knees at this point, grabbing at the wall. She was horrified, naturally (she would have been in first grade at this point) and ran downstairs, screaming to get my mother's attention. I made my way over to the stairs, crawled onto the top step and collapsed there, basically.

My sister was still freaking out and made my mother run into the foyer. "Are you OK?" she called from the bottom of the stairs. I had basically resigned myself to the fact that I was going to die at this point. I was going to die over a dispute with one of my best friends during a game of Super Nintendo Wheel of Fortune at my fourth grade sleepover birthday party. I wondered if all that would fit on my tombstone.

And then, I realized that I was breathing. Tears were drying on my cheeks. I stood up and felt my chest and my face, like I couldn't believe I was still there, and just stood there panting. "I couldn't breathe," I told her. "Chris R. jumped on me, accidentally, and I couldn't breathe."

"You got the wind knocked out of you," she said, already heading back into the kitchen. My sister followed her, pretty confused. I kept standing there for a second before I headed back into my room, because, what else could I do?

I walked back in expecting my friends to be waiting to see if I had died. I wasn't sure why they hadn't run out into the hall after me, trying to help--maybe they had stayed in my room to form a prayer circle. At least they would be a little worried. But Daniel and David were just sitting there playing Wheel of Fortune. They had both had the wind knocked out of them before and they knew what was going on, so while I was in the hall going through my death throes, they had just taken over me and Chris R.'s controllers. I was a little hurt, I guess, but the important thing is I was alive.

Chris R. had never had the wind knocked out of him before, and he had never seen such a thing either. So like me, he had thought I was dying. And as bad as it was for me to be out there groping for air and collapsing on the stairs, he was thinking, "I just murdered my friend on his ninth birthday."

"Where'd Chris R. go?" I asked. "I think he's in there," Daniel said, pointing at the closet. And that's when Chris R. stepped out. Because that's what he had done when he thought he had murdered me--he had hid (from the cops, I guess, or from my parents) in the closet.

"You're OK?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

And the two of us sat down, both still kind of shaking, and asked Daniel and David if we could get our controllers back, since it was still our game, after all.