My Daughter Survived a Fall That Should Have Killed Her

My daughter is five years old. Last summer she fell from the second-floor deck of my in-laws' home — approximately fourteen feet onto a concrete patio. I was inside and heard the sound. By the time I reached her she was sitting up, crying, but alert. The paramedics were in disbelief. The emergency room physicians ordered a full workup expecting serious injury. She had a minor fracture in her wrist and road rash on her palms where she had landed. That was it. The attending physician told us plainly that a fall of that height onto that surface typically results in traumatic head injury, spinal injury, or worse. He said she was extraordinarily lucky. I do not use that word. I watched my daughter fall and I watched her survive it and I know that something intervened between the fall and the landing. She is healthy, active, and largely unbothered by the whole thing. I think about it every single day.