MC is fifteen years old and comes from a wealthy family. I need a plausible accident where he ends up having one or both of his feet amputated. His face disfigured so that plastic surgery would have to be put on hold for over a year.
I thought about having him burned in some kind of fire accident. But he cannot lose function of his sight, hearing, voice, or use of hands.
How do I destroy the top and bottom but nothing in between?
Have him be slightly older, in the military or a cop, and body armor protection from a blast may do it.
Or have him be the fifteen-year-old you described, carrying his backpack weird (on his chest), and have that protect his chest, cause amputations, disfigurement, but have it protect his vision, speech, ears, and hands somehow...
A bomb/grenade going off on the other side of a car. The blast going under the car could destroy his feet, and the flying glass could cut up his face.
Diabetes. If you don't manage the symptoms, you can lose extremities like hands and feet. That could be the compounding problem for other injuries (With lack of sensation in his feet, he stumbles, falls over and knocks, say, a pan off the cooker as he falls, splashing hot water over his face requiring skin crafts.)
Does all the damage have to be done at one time? Could some of the damage not be done in more than one incident.
Frostbite. Maybe skiing. Maybe during an expensive trip somewhere that went wrong, like the Antarctica or North Pole. Or maybe climbing a high mountain and a snow storm makes rescuing take time.
One or both feet might need amputation. Facial tissue damage that will require plastic surgery. He might even lose his nose from the frostbite.
Thought about skiing accident, but how you get frostbite without also affecting the fingers? Maybe lost and walking through river wet boots but not gloves.
but how you get frostbite without also affecting the fingers?
Somehow he kept his gloves on while losing his boots.
How about he's hunting in the winter and steps into a bear trap. That's how he loses his foot. And everything is covered except his face which gets frostbite.
The problem with flying glass or something to disfigure his face would most likely go into his eyes as well.
ETA: Are bear traps still used? Or is that an 1800s thing? LOL
The problem with flying glass or something to disfigure his face would most likely go into his eyes as well.
If he wears glasses or has goggles on for some reason, that could allow damage to the face while protecting his eyes.
Thought about skiing accident, but how you get frostbite without also affecting the fingers? Maybe lost and walking through river wet boots but not gloves.
That's a good one, as you have simple skiing accident (falling from a ski life) or major ones, like when they're skiing through the trees after a fresh powder snowfall, never seeing the downed tree buried beneath the fresh snowfall.
That said, such an incident really needs a little drama, to help prepare the reader for the character's subsequent responses, so describing how it plays out and the rescue, rather than just a summary, "Oh yeah, Todd broke his hip over the weekend, so I guess he won't be playing the quarterfinals this years."
You could always do it in a series of flashbacks, but those are often difficult to master, matching flash forwards for each flashback, so you get a unified scene (the protagonist's response and the response of whoever is observing them having it).
Car accident.
Broken glass and debris lacerate his face.
Engine driven into front seat passenger crushes lower legs and severs feet. Pressure of engine on crushed lower legs stops blood flow; so he doesn't bleed out.
Delay caused by treating other more critical victims of accident prevents surgery for reattachment of feet until it is too late. Crushed legs, loss of feet, lacerated face, and other injuries take months to heal. Other surgeries on his more critical injuries and his recovery periods are required prior to cosmetic surgery for facial injuries.
Alternatively, severed feet could be mislaid/not found at accident scene prior to transport to hospital due to chaos and shortage of EMTs. That would prevent reattachment of feet.
If you're not trying to cripple him, a random knife attack, where maybe a jealous ex slashes them across the face or chest, so they end up with one major gnarly scar, which is the first thing others observe when they first see them.
There have been a few notable SOL stories where someone is crippled, or becomes completely disabled, yet that lack of mobility inherently limits the story, making it a tragedy rather than a romance of overcoming their obstacles story.
Then again, a fairly simple surgical procedure where the character reacts badly to the painkiller can be quite devastating, without any scar or horrendous, bloody scene, just the response when the family first visits them in the hospital and are so shocked, they bawl their eyes out. Now that's an impactful scene!
What would prevent getting immediate plastic surgery to fix the injuries?
Allowing time to heal?
Injuries to severe?
Maybe mental health issues but don't want MC to be a basket case.
Most common would be other injuries, i.e. internal organs, where putting the patient under anesthetic for cosmetic surgery might put him at risk.
Mass casualty situation, or high demand for medical facilities, such as happened during COVID. Plastic surgery has to wait a bit for swelling to go down, then a bit more, then more for the plague...
Does it have to be an accident? You can easily have someone abduct him torture him and get interrupted before the job gets completed. If the family is affluent it could be a kidnapping attempt gone wrong and the delay in treatment of the scarring could be for PT and psychological therapy to treat the trauma and loss of limb.
Does it have to be an accident? You can easily have someone abduct him torture him and get interrupted before the job gets completed. If the family is affluent it could be a kidnapping attempt gone wrong and the delay in treatment of the scarring could be for PT and psychological therapy to treat the trauma and loss of limb.
It might be worth searching SOL for the 'amputee' tag to see how other authors have handled the setup. I think Rottweiler, for example, has an amputee protagonist.
AJ
Look up brown recluse spider and see how nasty a bite from one can be. Plus if the bite becomes infected treatment will be prolonged. Any injury that becomes infected will delay a plastic surgery and infection types like MRSA can take a few days to months as well as causing death.
My sister suffered from that, however, it's often not as serious as it sounds, as often, those bitten won't even know it, as the skin simply starts sinking around the bite as the skin under the surface starts to decay. That can last months, yet they're still full mobile and fully functional. And with any bite, it generally depends on just how much venom you actually get (i.e. was it just trying to scare you, was if defending itself, or did it just get a glancing blow?)
In my sister's case, the brown recluse ended up under her blouse, crawliing over her shoulder when she was bit. No real pain, just the sinking, skin.
Oh man don't you know when getting even with sisters it is spiders in their hair, snakes in their pants, and you chase them with worms (big the better).
You are very correct and I'm glad that your sister wasn't badly injured.
Were we live, along the coast, near the American Dismal Swamp area, we have two highly poisonous snakes and four poisonous spiders. But one of those snakes is a Water Moccasin, which after hurricanes—which we get a LOT of here—they end up high in the trees, so when out paddling a canoe, they'd sometimes drop right into the canoe beside you.
In cases like that, you first reaction is to … you guessed it, jump out of the boat. Yet when you do, they follow you into the water, and then, surprise, they'll also dive under the water, so you have no clue where they might be.
Talk about terrifying experiences. Luckily, in those situations, the snakes are just glad to be alive, and are in no mood to try much of anything (presumably), as it happened fairly often, and I'd rarely hear any reports of injuries. Those I did, were mainly when flooding carried the animals either into homes, or into basements or crawl-spaces, making deadly encounters almost inevitable.
Sometimes, it's wise to think like you foe, either human serpent, snake or spider. Oh, this region is renown for Spanish Flytraps, plants which EAT various creatures too. ;)
So when it happened to her, the rest of us couldn't help but laugh, as we're so familiar with those uncomfortable situations, yet we're at least comfortable with it, at least knowing what to expect.
What about like a hiking accident where a rock fall occurs. He falls down and face gets severely cut and the rocks land on his foot/feet and crush them causing them to have to be amputated
Well you could have him go through what happened to a very good friend of mine. He was riding his bike it was wet having rained most of the morning. He lost control and fell in front of a street car which ran over his leg. Just one, but it could have easily been both, he had a gentleman who knew first aid hold the artery and stopped the bleeding but he still lost his leg. He had a prosthetic leg at the young age of 12
dont piss off the pimp.
its a common thing in some parts of africa, to remove the hands and feet of someone who has "wronged" your family or tribe.
Drug dealers would have no problem chopping the feet off someone. hell they loves that.
My native poisons animals are the Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake (Michigan Rattler) and the Honey Bee. As for the snake I have only ever seen two in all my years but even so the honey bee is deadlier yet both will leave you alone unlike your water moccasin where I would say those snakes have a bad attitude. Only snake I have ever seen in the wild come at people most snakes usually stay in place then escape or just try to escape.
Actually, the largest concentration of rattlesnakes is in, of all possible locations, southern Wisconsin, where they gather to mate. If you stand at the top of the cliff, you can see hundreds all getting busy and NO ONE even ventures down for a closer look. Plus, I'm sure the site has a protected status.
That said, I used to enjoy rock climbing, and loved bonsai, so would see out the natural bonsai, growing naturally out of the rock, and inevitable ended up face to face with a silent rattlesnake, who never rattled, just stared at me, daring me to move. I did, but very, very slowly. Still, it was a very exciting experience, though if I never made it back, I doubt anyone wouldn't ever found me. Dumb move, but tremendous results.
Ah, to be young and dumb again. Again, often reality is stranger than fiction.
I remember catching Timber Rattlers at one of the Boy Scout camps in NJ above the Delaware Water Gap. When you had them on a hook, they just tried to balance themselves so they didn't fall off. Copperheads were nasty and would try to get at you. The hook was shaped kind of like a question mark attached at right angles to an 12' pole. It was for things you didn't want to touch with a 10" pole. The fun part was releasing all of the ones we caught at the end of the summer.