It was a typically hectic morning for Wendy Free as she tried to get her son Jordan Free-Bryson out the door and to the school bus on time.
Free was carrying a garbage bag in one hand and a couple of boxes in the other as she started to descend the stairs of their apartment building on Monday morning. The next thing she knew, she found herself at the bottom of the stairs and in excruciating pain.
"I don't know what happened. I went to take the first step down and the next thing I remember I'm at the bottom and my arm was just in horrible, horrible pain," Free said. "I tried to sit up because that's your first thought, because you want to sit up, and I tried but I just couldn't do it. The pain was too intense and I was screaming.
"I fell down eight stairs head-first. I'm lucky I didn't break my neck. It could have been way worse."
Free had dislocated and broken her right shoulder.
"I could see it flop three times and I couldn't control it. I was thinking 'why is my arm doing that?' said Free who had never broken a bone in her life. "My son said right away 'Mommy, Mommy, are you dead?' I looked at him and said 'I'm not dead, but I think my arm's broken' and I started to cry.
"Then the first thing out of his mouth was 'I'm going to go get an ambulance.'"
Jordan, who is six and attends Sunningdale School, quickly ran to knock on a neighbour's door to call for an ambulance.
"I was really amazed at how well he did," Free said. "He's very shy. People come in and talk to him and he'll close right down. So I was so impressed that he just went and knocked on the door and didn't think twice about what he was doing."
After running back to the apartment to get his mom's cell phone so she could tell people to meet them at the hospital, Jordan didn't leave his mom's side.
"I was trying not to be too... emotional. I was trying to hold a lot of it in because my son was right there and he was holding my hand and saying 'You're OK. You're OK,'" she said.
Jordan sat with his mom during trip in the ambulance and was by her side the whole time until the put her shoulder back in its socket.
Free has to sleep on the couch and so Jordan is sleeping on his mattress beside her. When he felt she could use a laugh, he suggested they watch one of their favourite comedies to try to lift her spirits.
"He seems to know when we both need a laugh," she said.
It took two tries to get her shoulder back into its socket and Free is hoping that her arm will fully heal.
"My family doctor was just astounded by the medical report that he got -- my shoulder shattered. There were just little fragments of my shoulder inside, just broken," said Free, who is right-handed.
It's too early to tell, but she will be seeing the orthopedic surgeon shortly before Christmas to see if she will require surgery.
In the meantime, she is so proud of how her son responded in a crisis and trying to make the most of a difficult holiday season.
"It comes at such a horrible time," Free said. "We just lost our grandma last month and then now this and Christmas and right after Christmas on the 28th and 29th and we're going to move into our new apartment building."
